The Project Gutenberg EBook of Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August
1899, by Various
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: Appletons' Popular Science Monthly, August 1899
Volume LV
Author: Various
Editor: William Jay Youmans
Release Date: June 11, 2014 [EBook #45938]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE, AUG 1899 ***
Produced by Judith Wirawan, Greg Bergquist and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
Established by Edward L. Youmans
APPLETONS'
POPULAR SCIENCE
MONTHLY
EDITED BY
WILLIAM JAY YOUMANS
VOL. LV
MAY TO OCTOBER, 1899
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899
COPYRIGHT, 1899,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
[Illustration: Herbert Spencer]
APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.
AUGUST, 1899.
PUBLIC CHARITY AND PRIVATE VIGILANCE.
BY FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS, PH. D.,
PROFESSOR OF SOCIOLOGY IN COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.
The Comptroller of the City of New York deserves the thanks of all
good citizens for his serious indictment of the abuses of public
charity that have grown up in this city and State within the past ten
years. Probably very few of the more intelligent men and women of the
community were aware that three million dollars, raised by taxation,
are annually appropriated to the assistance of private charitable
institutions, over which the public has no real control and only the
most shadowy authority through the inspection of the State Board of
Charities. Of those who were informed of this fact, very few indeed
were acquainted with the specific abuses which the comptroller's
article exposes. To a few individuals, however, who have devoted time
and money unselfishly to the defense of public interests and to the
exposure of the evils of irresponsible relief, these facts have long
been familiar. Such can not fail to take satisfaction in the clear
presentation of the case by Mr. Coler. Especially to the men and women
who have been connected with the work of the State Charities Aid
Association and the Charity Organization Society will Mr. Coler's
article be welcome, as a strong re-enforcement of arguments which they
for years have been presenting to the people of New York, oftentimes,
it has seemed, to but unwilling hearers.
It is therefore in no spirit of fundamental disagreement, but rather
in the desire to further the reform which the comptroller demands,
that I venture to criticise in two particulars the statement as he has
left it.
It is an incomplete view of the enormously difficult problem of
charity which fails to set forth some of the reasons that have led to
the growth of an excessive faith in the excellence of private
institutions and in the wisdom of a co-operation between them and the
public, which is taken for granted when they receive appropriations of
public money.
Great as have been the abuses associated with private charity, they
are small when compared with the abuses that have existed in the
public administration of poor relief. As all familiar with the history
of this subject know, the old English poor law was so administered in
the rural parishes that paupers were in a more eligible position than
industrious farm laborers; that women with bastard children were
publicly rewarded for unchastity; and that, now and again, rent-paying
farmers were willing to surrender their lands to the paupers to work
them for what could be made, rather than to go on paying rates. The
exposure of the evils of the system, which was made in the report of
the famous Poor Law Commission appointed in 1832, and the attempt to
abolish them by the provisions of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834,
ought to be studied by every citizen who desires to perform his full
duty as a guardian of public interests, and especially by every
individual whose sympathies lead him to undertake any practical effort
for the amelioration of pauperism. In the United States, on account of
the extremely decentralized character of our poor-relief system
generally, we have no such impressive body of critical literature as
that which was brought out in England during the first half of the
present century. None the less, whenever special investigations of the
management of town and city relief administration and of the
management of almshouses have been made, deplorable abuses have almost
invariably been exposed, and individuals acquainted with the facts
have argued that any possible misdirection of either private or public
funds through private agencies could not equal the corruption and the
inhumanity for which officialism has been responsible.
Let us look at one noteworthy example. In 1891 a special committee
appointed to report on outdoor alms in the town of Hartford,
Connecticut, discovered a state of affairs with which nothing revealed
in Mr. Coler's statements can for a moment be compared. The general
situation, the committee said, was found to be as follows:
"In 1885 Hartford was paying $2.07 for each man, woman, and child of
its population in poor relief. New Haven was paying $1.30; Bridgeport,
$1.03; Waterbury, 81 cents; Norwich, $1.54; New Britain, $1.39, etc.;
for twelve Connecticut cities an average of $1.22 per capita against
our $2.07; and with Hartford far ahead of her nearest competitor. For
outdoor relief the figures were similar. Hartford, 90 cents per
capita; New Haven, 51 cents; Norwalk, 23 cents, etc.--an average for
the twelve of 61 cents per capita, with only one higher, Hartford in
the lead again by fifty per cent. Five Massachusetts cities, including
Boston, Worcester, and Lowell, average $1.16 for all relief, against
our $2.07; and 24 cents for outdoor relief against our 90 cents. Five
other New England cities, including Providence and Bangor, average 33
cents for all relief, against our $2.07; and 12 cents for outdoor,
against our 90 cents. Four New York cities--New York, Brooklyn,
Buffalo, and Albany--average 63 cents, against our $2.07; and 43
cents, against our 90 cents. Five cities in Pennsylvania and Maryland,
including Philadelphia, Pittsburg, and Baltimore, average 38 cents
against our $2.07; and 4 cents, against our 90 cents. Seven Western
and Southern cities, including Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee,
and Charleston, average 62 cents for all relief, against our $2.07;
and 17 cents, against our 90 cents."
A similar comparison extended by the committee to the principal cities
of Europe, including Berlin, Dresden, and Stuttgart, showed that here
again Hartford led them all. In short, it appeared to be proved that
Hartford was spending on the poor more money per capita of population
than any other city in the United States, and more than any other in
the world, with certain exceptions in Italy, and the noteworthy
exceptions of London, $3.75 per capita, and Paris, $3.66 per capita.
Hartford, however, outranked even London in its percentage of pauper
population, which was 6.2 in Hartford, against 2.46 in London. While
in Hartford every sixteenth person was a recipient of municipal
bounty, in London the proportion was only one in forty. Paris led all,
with one in eight.
Investigation of the causes of this deplorable state of affairs
revealed an astonishing understanding between the paupers and the
officials. Tramps were given residence and support for the sake of
their votes on election day. Grocery stores were practically
subsidized. Families whose individual members could be made useful
politically were supported in outdoor relief.
That the showing was so much better for New York and other great
American cities was not a proof of greater honesty or wisdom of
administration on the part of municipal officials. The difference was
almost wholly due to the enormous extension of private as over against
public charity outside of typical New England Commonwealths like
Connecticut, where the town method of dealing with such matters still
holds its own against other forms of philanthropic enterprise. Proof
on this point would be overwhelming were we to take the necessary
space to present it. One has only to go through the annual reports of
the New York State Board of Charities and read the exposures that have
repeatedly been made of the state of affairs on the islands of the
East River and in the county almshouses of the State to satisfy
himself that were the whole burden of supporting the pauper population
of this Commonwealth, and especially of this city, thrown upon the
public, private enterprise withdrawing from the competition, the
appropriations mentioned by Mr. Coler would sink into ridiculous
insignificance by comparison. The appropriation of public money to
private institutions has become a scandalous abuse, but we shall never
understand its strength until we frankly face the fact that the public
has been experimenting with it, hoping thus to find a way of escape
from the greater abuses that attend the administration of public
relief by public agencies except when they are incessantly watched and
held up to the broadest light of publicity by the disinterested
efforts of private citizens.
The omission of this side of the matter from Mr. Coler's discussion
may perhaps be regarded as a mere failure to deal with the whole of a
very large and difficult problem. But it is more than a mere omission;
it is, I think, a positive error, and a serious one, into which the
comptroller falls when he lays as much stress as he does upon the
expenditure, for salaries and wages, of a large proportion of the sums
appropriated by the city for private institutions. The real question
here, as all sound experience has repeatedly demonstrated, is not
whether the expenditure is for salaries in general rather than for
relief. This Mr. Coler practically admits when he says that a great
deal of money spent for relief is worse than wasted, because it
fosters pauperism instead of repressing it, and when, at the close of
his article, he says that he found it necessary to create in his
department a bureau to investigate the character of institutions
asking aid. This is a frank confession that the expenditure of money
for salaries or for wages may be wiser than its expenditure in relief,
provided the salaries or wages are earned in actual investigation,
which results in exposing fraud and preventing expenditures on
improper applicants. This is the very kernel of the whole matter,
whether it is a private or a public administration of charity that we
are considering. The use of money, public or private, for the payment
of salaries that are mere sinecures is dishonesty pure and simple, and
neither the comptroller nor any of those private organizations that
make it their business to watch and criticise administration can have
a more imperative duty than that of putting an end to such corruption.
But, on the other hand, there could be no better index of positive
progress in solving the practical problems of charity than a steady
increase in the ratio of expenditures in salaries and wages on account
of investigation and prevention to the amount spent in actual relief.
That, in fact, would be an ideal administration of public and private
charities in which the efficiency of investigators and the practical
sagacity of relieving agents was so high that nearly the whole sum
expended had to be charged to their salary account.
This is precisely the principle which private organizations like the
State Charities Aid Association and the Charity Organization Society
have labored in season and out of season to make the public and the
officials comprehend. Innumerable exposures of the impostures
practiced upon a credulous public by the great class of professional
mendicants, tramps, and place seekers have furnished all the evidence
that sensible men need to satisfy themselves that large sums expended
by the public and by private individuals of charitable proclivities
have no other result than that of encouraging pauperism and misery. It
is largely due to the tireless efforts of the State Charities Aid
Association for many years past that the institutions receiving public
moneys in this State have been watched with such vigilance that there
is now a strict system of accounting in all of them, and that it has
become the duty of the State Board of Charities not only to insist
upon such accounting and to carry out a thorough inspection, but also
to frame and enforce rules for their government.
These criticisms I offer, however, only because, as I said at the
outset, I desire to see the fundamental proposition of Mr. Coler's
statement strengthened and made to bear practical fruit. It is indeed
a very serious question whether the appropriation of public money to
private institutions has not become so great an evil that it would be
better to put a stop to it once for all. And yet I must confess to a
doubt whether, upon a complete survey of all the facts, this would be
the judgment of the most practical and far-seeing men. The granting of
appropriations gives to the city and the State a reason and an excuse
for a strict inspection of organizations that otherwise might do
incalculable mischief by preying upon the credulity of a generous
public while concealing their actual operations. I therefore am
inclined to think that the path of practical wisdom lies through an
attempt to perfect the existing co-operation between public and
private agencies, and to bring it to a sounder business basis by
developing inspection, publicity, and accountability. If private
organizations are encouraged to do all in their own power under a
system wherein the State grants them aid under strict conditions, lays
down necessary rules for their government and guidance, and
remorselessly exposes all their transactions, the actual result may be
better in the long run than if State and private associations
proceeded independently of one another, often duplicating each other's
work, or, if not that, working at cross-purposes.
RECENT LEGISLATION AGAINST THE DRINK EVIL.
BY APPLETON MORGAN.
Five years ago it was sought in these pages[1] to discover the cause
or causes of the total failure in the United States of prohibitive
legislation.
[Footnote 1: The Popular Science Monthly for February, 1894.]
Our conclusion, so far as a conclusion could be said to have been
reached, was that the failure lay in the misapplication of ways to
means, rather than of means to ends--namely, that an attempt to
abolish the crime (or misdemeanor) of drunkenness by punishing, not
the criminal, but the community in which he committed the crime, and
to prevent law-breaking by legislating out of existence the neutral
instrument which happened to form the particular temptation to the
particular law-breaker (or with which he found it convenient to commit
the crime), was quite too logical to be practicable; as, for instance,
laws abolishing the use of spoons, as so many temptations to
housebreakers; or of railways, because trespassers on railway tracks
were often killed; or steamboats, because steamboat boilers sometimes
burst, would be quite too logical for public convenience. Whence it
followed that there was no demand for prohibitive liquor laws, and
therefore only failure had resulted from attempting to enforce them.
In the five years since that paper was printed almost every one of the
United States (in fact, all, with but one exception) have recognized
such failure and striven to so recast each its statutes as to plant
the responsibility for breach of public order upon the real offender
without hardship to the law-abiding classes. The results of these
attempts have evolved many novel and unusual contrivances and much
curious operation of statutory and statistical wisdom, and some
remarkable propositions--so much so that it is believed that an effort
to digest them (not by States, but by the principles, or rather by the
remedies, attempted) will be interesting consideration for readers of
the Popular Science Monthly. If the following summary shall develop
two apparent paradoxes--first, that the fewer the places where liquor
is sold the larger the consumption of liquor; and, second, that the
larger the consumption of liquor the less drunkenness--the present
writer can only submit that these paradoxes are not his own, but seem
to arise from the official statistics submitted under the oaths of the
authorities commissioned to collect them, as hereinafter will more
fully appear:
Of the forty-nine States and Territories in the United States, the
solitary exception above noted is the State of Maine. With a heroism
that is actual martyrdom of self-interest and convenience, the State
of Maine has clung with imperious tenacity to her policy of absolute
prohibition, and to the logic of the report of her citizen, who,
sixty-three years ago, carried her first prohibition law through her
Legislature. Said that report: "The objection will doubtless be made
that had we such a law it could not be enforced. Now, admit the
validity of this objection, and it proves the utter hopelessness of
the case; for no one, we presume, will venture the supposition that
you can accomplish, against law, that which you could not effect with
it."[2]
[Footnote 2: Report of General James Appleton to the Legislature
of Maine, July 15, 1837.]
Admitting, as all the world does admit, that the abolition of
drunkenness is desirable, against such pitiless, such iron, logic as
this, there is no appeal, and from it there is no escape even to-day.
But the trouble was, and is, that it is placing an entire Commonwealth
in time of peace under martial law. It was in the fitness of things
that General Appleton, a soldier, who had seen intoxication in a form
most likely to impress him with dangers to the public--i. e., in
soldiers to whom the safety of the State in time of war was
intrusted--should have brought in the first prohibition law on
record;[3] and that, in the teeth of more than two generations of
failure, the sovereign State of Maine should have adhered to his
martial logic, with the loss of her commerce and the reduction of her
census, is a tribute to both the logic of a soldier or the
self-insistence of the State which must compel admiration! In
sixty-three years Maine has seen her commerce disappear and her
population dwindle. She has seen not only her contemporary sister
States, but those admitted yesterday and the day before, pass her in
affluence and prosperity. But the only remedy for her failure she will
listen to the suggestion of is an increased severity of prohibition
statutes and an increased crucifixion of her law-abiding citizens,
lest one of her own or a single stranger within her gates should
obtain a glass of alcoholic compound within her borders.
[Footnote 3: General Appleton was commander of the First Brigade
of the Second Division of Massachusetts infantry in the War of
1812-1815, his resignation dating 1828.]
But, cling as the State of Maine may to the fierce logic of
prohibition, it appears that her forty-eight sisters have found its
unappealable rigor too rigid, and have modulated it in the diverse
ways now to be considered.
In these remaining forty-eight States and Territories of the Union the
statistics regulating liquor seem to divide themselves, as to the
remedies attempted, into ten heads, as follows:
I. Abolish all liquor laws except those for revenue.
II. Example.
III. Education.
IV. Government control of all warehousing and sales.
V. Regulation of hours for retailing liquors.
VI. Refusal of employment to drinkers. Change of pay-day.
VII. Personal damage law.
VIII. Encourage the use of light wines and beers; remove all duties or
imposts on food products; quality inspection.
IX. High revenue--national, interstate, or State.
X. Local option.
For No. I, pure and simple, we have but a single report, perhaps (as
of a frontier State) not exemplary, or safe to guide the more interior
States, but given exactly for what it may be worth. The Governor of
Montana (a State which boasts the bad eminence of having
proportionately more liquor-sellers paying license fees than any other
State in the Union--having, in fact, one licensed liquor-seller to
every fifty-five inhabitants) reports as follows:
"Saloons are run wide open night and day; while there is a great deal
of drinking there is very little drunkenness, and one in an
intoxicated condition is promptly arrested and fined." One other
State, however (Louisiana), has the continental idea that liquor laws
are for "revenue only." Louisiana, therefore, has an elaborate excise,
guiltless of any suggestion of reformative objects. So far as her
statistics go, she is the most temperate State in the Union.
II. EXAMPLE.--This may be called the apostolic cure--the one laid down
by the apostle St. Paul (I Corinthians, viii, 13)--though we find a
prominent English ecclesiastic, Dean Hole, on being asked if he was
not aware that people ought to abstain for the sake of their example
to others, replied: "I have never seen any one converted by example. I
have often challenged teetotalers to produce Mr. Jones converted by
the example of Mr. Brown, but I am waiting for him. I don't see why I
should make a fool of myself because others do." I should not deal
with the matter quite so summarily myself. Doubtless the example of a
thrifty, wholesome, prosperous laborer, if left (without exhortation
or impertinence of third parties) to work upon his dram-drinking,
wretched neighbor, might have its laudable effect: such example not
being deprived in advance of its value by the fetters of a written
pledge which a man's personal pride might force him to ostentatiously
observe--or if the exemplary person does not get his living by
denouncing liquor--or by the coercion of a Ladies' Temperance Union!
But as the person converted by the example would be certain not to
parade the fact, no statistics could even then be attainable. The case
or cases, if genuine, would be hidden in the consciences of the
converts and beyond any marshaling in figures. All we can do is to
hope and trust that our good examples may prevail, and that, like the
apostle St. Paul (whom our British ecclesiastic begs to differ with),
there may be some among us strong enough physically as well as
spiritually to say, "If meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no
meat while the world standeth."
These considerations have not, however, deterred certain States from
ingrafting example upon the statute-book, as nearly as it could be
made a subject of legislation, by enacting that there shall be held
before the eye of the possible drinker the spectacle of his neighbors
drinking rum: trusting, doubtless, to the rum itself to work a
condition in the drinker to afford the example required, and so add to
the unestimated but hoped-for good example to bad example at hand.
Three States--i. e., Indiana, Michigan, and Utah--and the city of
Atlanta, Georgia, by municipal ordinance, provide that the premises on
which liquor is retailed by drinks shall have no screen or other
obstruction before its windows, so that passers-by may see the
drinking which goes on therein and its horrible accompanying
circumstances. The reports from these States, however, are not such as
to commend this policy of example to universal acceptance.
III. EDUCATION.--Within the past four years several States--Wisconsin,
Ohio, New Jersey, Nevada--have enacted statutes providing that pupils
in the public schools should be particularly instructed in so much at
least of the science of toxicology as relates to the uses and abuses
of alcohol, and of its effect upon the human system. Such instruction,
if honestly imparted by capable teachers and by honest text-books, can
not fail to be of the highest value. Capable teachers and honest
text-books could not possibly teach, for example, that alcoholic
liquors were an unmixed evil, could not deny their medicinal value, or
their stimulative aid in fortifying against disease or exposure, or in
supplying the waste of age; could not teach (as I gave instances of of
fanatical teachings) that it were better to die for the need of a
glass of whisky than to have one's life saved by the use of it, or
that the use of liquor "destroys both body and soul" (in the teeth of
the facts that only the most flagrant and protracted abuse of liquor
ever, and that after a long term of years, destroyed a human body, and
that statistics as to the soul are not attainable). Much is to be
hoped for under this benign instruction. It is not possible that our
youth will not miss to acquire much important information, such as
that "wine is a good servant if well used"; that total abstinence is
a regimen only to be pursued by advice of a physician; that the vast
majority of human beings can and do partake moderately of alcoholic
liquors, not only without injurious consequences, but with positive
benefit; and that, as it is a source of much enjoyment, and much
discomfort often springs from its discontinuance, it is difficult to
say why such use should be discontinued under ordinary circumstances.
Our youth will learn, too, that there are many nations that thrive
without alcoholic drinks--nations, for example, professing the
Mohammedan faith, to whom alcohol is forbidden by their religion; but
that among them the use of stronger narcotics, such as opium and
Indian hemp, is extremely common, and the exchange from alcohol to
these narcotics can hardly be looked upon as a gain. The result of
this State instruction may be confidently looked for, and can not
possibly do harm. It is too early as yet to procure data for
discussion of the amount of good accomplished by this legislation. We
must wait until the adolescent pupil has grown to man's estate, to
middle age, until his mortal change, and search his record, and the
record of the family he leaves behind him, for the benefits of the
paternal legislation. In short, it is exceedingly doubtful if data
upon this subject, in the nineteenth century at least, will ever be
collected at all. It is noticeable, however, that in the States'
scheme of education the peripatetic temperance lecturer, with his
lurid colored charts of the human stomach in the horrors of suffering
from what he calls "the flowin' bowl," have no place, and no salary is
provided for such "university extension" processes. A suggestion
lately made in these pages that temperance lecturers as well as liquor
dealers being obliged to take out licenses (at least as caterers to
the public amusement) is conspicuous by its absence from the
educational plan.
IV. GOVERNMENT CONTROL OF TRAFFIC.--The idea of a government monopoly
in liquor is from continental Europe, and, like most ideas from that
source, is paternal and monarchical pure and simple. The idea reached
perfection in what is known as the Gothenburg system, which,
attracting considerable attention from students of the liquor problem,
was introduced into the statutes of Georgia, where after a brief trial
it was discarded. The State of South Carolina, however, adopted its
principal features, calling it the "dispensary system," and is still
maintaining it.
The story of the Gothenburg system is as follows: Since the days of
Gustavus Adolphus III there had existed in Sweden and Norway a policy
making the distillation of a liquor called _bränxin_, or brandy, a
right running with the ownership of land first, afterward with a
tenancy of land, and ultimately a right secured to tavern-keepers.
This brandy being distilled from grain or potatoes, and containing
about fifty per cent of alcohol, was cheap, and in consequence of the
poor food supply grew into universal use, until not only men and women
but very young children drank it. Drunkenness became the rule, and
pauperism and crime prevailed in startling proportions, outrunning the
range of either charity or police to control them. In this state of
affairs a Dr. Wisselgren, Dean of Gothenburg, a Swedish city, arose,
and from his exertions grew the famous Gothenburg system.
Stripped of detail, this system provides that stock companies called
brandy companies shall receive from the crown a monopoly of liquor
sales, on condition of maintaining eating houses, reading rooms,
lodgings, and other conveniences for the community, and out of surplus
profits contribute to the police, the poor, and the educational, funds
of the community. The companies shall be under inspection of the royal
governor, with no appeal from his discretion, and also under
inspection of officers of the three funds entitled to the surplus
profits. The companies must close their places of sale on Sundays, can
sell only to persons over eighteen years of age, and in the rooms
devoted to drinking alone there must be no chairs or settees. After
drinking, the purchaser must depart. Such rooms must not be in
communication directly with the eating and lodging rooms. In these
latter cleanliness and cheapness must prevail, but the company may
raise the price and dilute the strength of the brandy sold.
With much amendment and revision, this system appears to be to-day
substantially in effect, with what good results opinions differ. It
was speedily rejected after brief trial in Georgia for a high-license
system pure and simple. In South Carolina its introduction from
Georgia provoked riot and even bloodshed on account of the right of
search which it involved. The main feature is, of course, that the
State becomes the real buyer, jobber, and retailer of all ardent
spirits. Here it has been found difficult of complete administration,
and, unless its success should be more distinguished than at present,
it probably is but a short-lived expedient.
V. REGULATION OF HOURS OF SALE.--All the liquor-licensing States and
Territories regulate the hours of opening and closing drinking places.
They all agree in closing them during the small hours (that is, from
midnight or one o'clock A. M. until about sunrise or an hour after).
It is difficult to all what effect for good or ill these statutes can
have upon either the decrease of drunkenness or the increase of
revenue. Doubtless they are convenient for the public force of cities
or the constabulary of the smaller towns, so that they may know when
to be prepared for possible breaking of the public peace. But in no
State, so far as we can discover, are they applied to Sunday, the day
when, in large cities especially, and in the heated season, the
inconvenience of hermetically closed ale and beer houses is most
exasperating to the wayfarer, and intolerable and even (from a
sanitary standpoint) dangerous to the wage-earning and poorer classes,
packed in torrid and fetid tenements on the figment of a danger of
"disturbing a public worship" (I say "figment" because no instance of
a disturbance of public worship by the sale of liquor can be found in
the history of this planet). Why in torrid weather the worthy poor man
and his family who can not afford ice-boxes can not quench a natural
and normal thirst, and so avoid contracting disease by drinking stale
and impure water in the superheated apartments of city tenement houses
where an average of three families to a window pane has been said to
be the rule, I for one have never been able to comprehend. A good
Sunday law, as in London, not allowing but compelling the opening of
beer houses on certain hours on Sundays, would be a most desirable
thing, especially in our great cities. The fact, too, that at present
the streets of our American cities are woefully lacking in other
sanitary conveniences, which are only supplied meagerly by an
occasional drinking place, would appear an additional reason why a
Sunday-opening law would be quite as convenient and quite as welcome
as a Sunday-closing law. Such a law would have the effect of at least
meeting public convenience, and might well be substituted for the
present ridiculous closing laws. Into what legislative intellect it
ever first entered to conceive that the cause of temperance would be
assisted by closing liquor saloons seven hours out of the twenty-four
(and those seven the hours when all Nature, drunk or sober, is asleep)
it passes imagination to conjecture. Most Legislatures have followed
the first one, however, and enacted such provisions.
VI. REFUSAL OF EMPLOYMENT TO PERSONS KNOWN TO BE HABITUAL USERS OF
LIQUOR.--In two States--viz., New York and Ohio--clauses have been
introduced forbidding the employment by railways and other common
carriers of passengers, of persons known to be addicted to the use of
intoxicants. In the latter State the common carrier must be notified
that such person has been known to be intoxicated while in said
carrier's "active" employment, in order to bind the carrier with
knowledge. Such a provision as this may be criticised as the Czar of
Russia's proposition for a universal disarmament is likely to be
criticised--as admirable and millennial, but of no value if gradually
adopted, and impossible of instant adoption. No public industry, not
even the liquor industry, could cease and disappear in a day without
throwing tens of thousands of wage-earners out of employment, and it
would be hardship indeed if the family of the drinking man, the
toiling wife, scheming to save a morsel of the weekly wages from the
dram shop, should be forced to accept the alternative of no wages at
all. The suggestion presents, again, a maze of presumption from which,
once entered into, no practical exit would present itself. Supposing
that no skilled laborer, no finisher, no engineer, no oiler, no
fireman, etc., could be found who was a total abstainer for any one
factory or railway service, let alone a hundred or a hundred thousand
cases? Clearly this discussion could only be pursued as a curiosity
(or, say, a fascinating speculation as to the effects of an industrial
chaos). The first item in the recipe for making hare stew was to catch
your hare. To run our commerce with totally abstaining employees we
must find our totally abstaining employees. To pause to create them
would bring commerce, and with it society, including the churches, the
schools, and the Temperance Unions themselves, to a standstill like
that of Joshua's moon in Ajalon! In connection with this employment
question, however, a practical suggestion has been made. It is
suggested that, as Saturday night is the workman's "night off" and the
ensuing Sunday is his holiday, it might work well to make the weekly
pay-day of a Monday instead of a Saturday. The experiment is worth a
trial. The change could be made abruptly, and the bad half an hour to
the workman would occur but once. Let him be handed his wages some
Monday morning when the Saturday night's spree and the long Sunday's
headache had been novel and conspicuous omissions. The necessity of
good shape for Tuesday's stint would prevent a Monday night at the bar
room, and the probability is that the wife and family might realize a
substantial instead of a marginal proportion of the weekly wage. At
any rate, compared with some of the suggestions made for remedying the
drink evil, this is superbly sensible. Indeed, one who has not had
occasion to examine these matters can have little idea of the
absurdity to which otherwise perfectly sane persons will go in
combating an evil with which they are very properly impressed, but to
the consequences of an abrupt removal of which it has not occurred to
them to pay any attention whatever; for example, the seriously
proposed law against "treating"--that is, against inviting a friend to
"take a drink" with him. Granted that the tippling habit is encouraged
by the social instinct, and that the great peril of drunkenness comes
(as an old New England farmer expressed it) "not from drinkin', but
from drinkin' agin," a law to prevent treating, like a law forbidding
a man from inviting his neighbor home to dinner, or his wife inviting
the other man's wife over to luncheon, would be obliged to first find
its lawgiver. But gentlemen who solve the liquor question are not apt
to be particular to find a jurisdiction and a source for the laws they
propose. It is interesting to note that in one State (Nevada) an
anti-treating law was once actually passed, but repealed, "having
proved impracticable" (at least, that is the official record of the
reason for its repeal, no particulars being given).
VII. THE PERSONAL DAMAGE LAW.--that is, the holding of a seller of
liquor to a person known to be dangerous when in drink responsible for
damage caused by his intoxication. This principle has now become
ingrafted in the laws of seventeen of the United States, sometimes
coupled with high license and local option and sometimes not. It is
really only an application of the principle of the common law that a
man must so use his own as not to injure his neighbor; that
communities had the same right to hold a supplier of intoxicants to a
violent drinker as a criminal as it had to punish the keeper of a
dangerous beast (of a biting dog, for example, knowing it to be
such--i. e., if the animal has once bitten a human being or killed a
domestic animal kept for revenue, as a cow or a sheep). This civil
damage law has been made statutory in many ways. In Ohio the seller is
held indefinitely for the "expenses of any one who takes charge of the
intoxicated person" after notice to the seller not to sell to that
person. In Michigan the damages may be exemplary. In Vermont, if the
drunkard is imprisoned the seller must pay two dollars per day to his
wife or minor children in addition to suffering an imprisonment. In
New Hampshire and Nebraska, and in several other States, a person
arrested for drunkenness is given his liberty if he will disclose the
name of the person who sold him the liquor on which he became
intoxicated. In most of the other States (as in New York) the damages
are not limited except by the facts of such case. In New York, too,
the preliminary notice is insisted on. In other States (as Idaho) the
seller's damage is the loss of his license, if notice not to sell has
been properly served upon him. In Arkansas the liquor seller as a
condition of his license must give a bond to pay all damages awarded.
In Nebraska the seller must give a bond to support all widows and
orphans, and pay all legal expenses of prosecution as well as all
damage resulting from any intoxication induced by or traceable to his
sales.
VIII. ENCOURAGE THE USE OF LIGHT WINES AND BEERS.--The suggestion has
often been made that this would undoubtedly solve at one swoop a
respectable proportion of the problem. The practical difficulty would
be to institute the reform in any but the cities and larger towns.
Everybody has remarked that, to see the true and distinguished squalor
of drunkenness, one must seek the villages, sparsely settled
communities, the rural districts whence come the "come-ons," the
willing victims of the green-goods men, anxious to cheat their
Government (and so, one might say, at least a shade less estimable
than the sharper who only proposes to cheat a fellow-citizen). It
seems to me that the reason for this difference lies distinctly in the
fact that the countryman, who will gratify his appetite for drink, has
no choice but the concoction of ardent spirits, high wines, or
whatever it is which the local publican sets before him. To him the
word "wine" suggests a luxury beyond his venture or his purse. And so
for the price at which, in a large city, he could obtain half a
bottle, or even a bottle, of wholesome red wine, the consumption of
which at a settling would do no possible harm, he throws into his
stomach a glass of biting poison, and, horrible to relate, another and
another; whereas the whole bottle, or at least the half bottle,
probably shared with a neighbor, would have satisfied his craving
without ruining his digestion or stealing away his brains. This clause
of our discussion runs largely into our IX. But meanwhile here are
some figures which may startle prohibitionists as completely as did
the figures given in these pages four years ago, which went to prove
that habitual drunkards lived longer than total abstainers. (These
figures have been strenuously denied in declamation and denouncement.
I have yet to learn that any attempt has been made by industry in
collection of counter-figures to demonstrate their fallacy.[4]) But
here are certain other figures: It appears by the official report of
Dr. Nagle to the Health Department of the city of New York for the
first thirty-one weeks of the year 1893 (the city then prior to the
consolidation or to the present "Raines" law) that in the community
(as it then was of 1,765,645 inhabitants) out of 29,080 deaths only
twenty-nine were directly traceable to the use of liquor. And this in
a community where 10,749 liquor saloons were in operation from sunrise
to midnight daily, not to mention the use of wines and liquors in
hundreds of hotels and clubs and of wines and malt liquors on tens of
thousands of private tables. These figures are startling, and read
quite as extravagantly as those quite to the reverse conclusion with
which the prohibitionists are wont to appall us. But they are from
the official sources, and, unlike the awful figures which show a
larger mortality from the use of liquor alone than the mortality from
all known causes (liquor included), can be verified by taking the
trouble to consult the files of the (New York) City Record. As for the
part which drinking wine has to do with this official summary, I may
mention the difficulty of approximating to the sales of what may be
properly called "light wines." But I have been able to ascertain (as
some indication of it, perhaps) that in the fifty-two weeks of this
same year (1893) there were consumed in the same city 265,414 cases of
champagne! So it would appear that even champagne is a mitigant,
rather than an aggravator, of at least the public horrors of
drunkenness.
[Footnote 4: Perhaps for convenience of reference the figures
heretofore found so startling may be repeated. Of 4,234 deaths
collected by the British Medical Association, divided for
reference into five classes--namely: _a_, total abstainers; _b_,
habitually temperate; _c_, careless drinkers; _d_, free drinkers;
_e_, habitual drunkards--the ages of death of those in each class
were registered, together with the causes of death; and the
average of death for each class computed with the following
result:
Total abstainers lived on an average 51.22 years;
Habitually temperate lived on an average 62.13 "
Careless drinkers lived on an average 59.67 "
Free drinkers lived on an average 57.59 "
Habitual drunkards lived on an average 52.03 "
To cancel such a statement as this, some industry is required on
the other side; at least a collection of 4,234 other cases.
Anybody can say that a laboriously tabulated statement is false.
But it requires patience to demonstrate it.]
I am not unconscious of the fluent answer to these figures. It will be
of course urged by the prohibitionist that they only show deaths the
"direct" cause of dram-drinking. But such answer is correspondingly
unsafe. For, since death, albeit normal to us all comes from some
cause (notably from old age, for example), a better formula would be
that, since many deaths are caused by old age, and as old age is
caused by living too long, we should be careful not to live too long.
Hence, as life is prolonged by eating, as well as shortened by
drinking (granting that contention), to abstain from the use of food
is the only course of wisdom!
This encouragement to the drinking of light wines has, so far, only
positively found its way into the statute-books of the one essentially
wine-growing State, California, though in other States it has made its
limited appearance. Nor does there seem to be any reason why every
State should not include in its laws such a provision, for example, as
that of Oregon (certainly not known as _per se_ a "wine-growing State"
at present), which provides that "owners of vineyards may sell their
products without license"; or of Utah, which, however, adds to a
similar provision that the sale must be in quantities not less than
five gallons. Even Kansas provides that wine or cider, grown by the
maker for his own use or to be sold for communion purposes, is not
within the prohibitions. However, as in most of the States, the price
of a license to sell only wines, or wines and beers, is less than the
price of a license to sell ardent spirits, it may fairly be said that
an encouragement to drinking wines in preference to distilled liquors
has become parcel of the public policy in most communities. In Georgia
the sellers of wines who are also manufacturers thereof are exempted
from paying any license. The State of Michigan is justly proud of its
Dairy and Food Commission, which provides for the examination and
secures the purity not only of fruits, butter, milk, cheese, but of
buckwheat flour, jellies, canned goods, lard, vinegar, coffee, sirups
and molasses, chocolate, cocoanuts, baking powder, flavoring
extracts, mustard, and other spices. And this same law (elsewhere
considered as to adulteration of liquors) seems to encourage light
wines by a distinct provision that "the blending of liquors will be
permitted if spirits or other ingredients are not added." In Rhode
Island, if manufactured from fruit or grain grown in the State, no
license is required for the manufacture of cider, wine, or malt
liquors; and (with a thrift not uncharacteristic) alcohol, while
subject to a heavy license for home consumption, may be produced for
exportation without any license at all.
IX. REMOVE ALL DUTIES, TAXES, IMPOSTS, OR BURDENS OF ANY SORT ON FOOD
PRODUCTS, SERIALS, OR MEATS, in order that the food supply may be
unfailing everywhere.
Ten years ago the Hon. Edwin Reed, of Boston, Massachusetts, published
a pamphlet[5] in which he had the courage to say that, if a man were
well fed, liquor could have no terrors for him. "Take care of the
eating and the drinking will take care of itself." Repeal all laws
that in any degree and on any pretext tend to enhance the market
prices, was Mr. Reed's thesis, and he nailed it boldly to the
Massachusetts State-House door! Mr. Reed proceeded with figures to
remind us that the countries where drunkenness existed to the most
alarming degrees were those countries where the masses of the people
eat the least, see meat perhaps once or twice a year, and perhaps
never; where the year's labor barely suffices to pay the year's
taxes!--in Italy, Russia, or Sweden, and parts of Germany, for
example, where life is a struggle for bread enough to keep life in the
body. The figures Mr. Reed gives are too appalling for an Anglo-Saxon
to read calmly. "If Russia," says Mr. Reed, "could reduce her infant
mortality to that of Great Britain she would save annually a million
of lives. Half the Russian mothers can not nurse their children. The
whip and spur of poverty drives them to labor in the fields, where
they follow the plow three days after confinement, and where the death
rate is forty-eight per thousand.... In France many a factory hand
lives on a slice of sour bread for a meal, over which he is fortunate
if he can rub an onion to give it flavor.... In Italy, where taxes are
imposed to twenty-five per cent of the laborer's income, the average
length of life is twenty-seven years, and the whole kingdom is
mortgaged to an average of seventeen per cent." In Würtemberg Mr. Reed
assures us that "in this garden of Germany the peasant lives on black
bread and potatoes with meat only once a year." And even in England
Mr. Reed (quoting his authority) declares that the collier breakfasts
on bread soaked in hot water and flavored with onion, dines on bread
and hard cheese, with sour, thin cider, and sups on potatoes or
cabbage greased with a bit of bacon rind. And precisely the identical
testimony, varying only the staples of starvation, comes from
Switzerland, Poland, and other countries. Now, all this requires
something, and that something usually takes the form of something
alcoholic. Poor Edgar Allan Poe produced his fascinating prose and
marvelous poetry on dinners of herbs, and the well-fed, fat, greasy
Honey-thunders and Podsnaps recognize the crime, not in the fact that
such a man was left to eat such dinners, but that he took a glass of
whisky to keep the life in his poor unnourished body while he wrote.
Therefore Mr. Reed would make food as plentiful as Nature has enabled
man to make it. In other words, a condition of unfedness requires the
human system to crave alcoholic stimulants, and what the human system
craves it must find, since the craving becomes functional, and
impossible to disregard, _malgre_ laws, systems, or statutes
whatsoever. Even the children in Switzerland, says Dr. Schuler (quoted
by Mr. Reed), are fed whisky between meals in order to sustain their
tiny lives, the low regimen of whose mothers has given them the
frailest possible hold on life to live at all. Mr. Reed believes also
that, on public grounds, other effort for amelioration should be made
by the State, such as shorter hours of labor, two holidays a week,
etc. But as to these we will not follow him here. He makes his point,
however, and his pamphlet is worth the consideration of
philanthropists. It can not be denied that, with the exception of the
shorter hours for labor and the general tendency to increase the
number of holidays ("Labor Day," Arbor Day, Memorial Day, Lincoln Day,
etc.), much of Mr. Reed's theories have got into our statute-books.
And the general tendency to ameliorate the condition of the laborer,
which is everywhere apparent in the United States, may fairly be
alluded to here as among statutory efforts to the universal
betterment.
[Footnote 5: A New View of the Temperance Question. By Edwin
Reed, Boston, 1889.]
[_To be concluded._]
* * * * *
Regarding changes in the language of science, as illustrated in
the English Historical Dictionary, C. L. Barnes pointed out, in
the Literary and Philosophical Society of Manchester, England,
that the words "astronomy" and "astrology" have interchanged
meanings since they were first introduced, as is shown by
Evelyn's speaking, in his Memoirs, of having dined with "Mr.
Flamsteed, the learned astrologer and mathematician." Gaule, in
1652, spoke of chemistry as "a kind of præstigious, cheating,
covetous magick"; and even as late as 1812 Bentham spoke of the
"unexpressive appellation chemistry" as the single-worded synonym
for "idioscopic or crypto-dynamic anthropurgics." Atom originally
meant a small interval of time--the 22,564th part of an hour. The
word gas was suggested to Van Helmont by the Greek chaos. "I
called that vapor gas," he said, "an ancient mystery not long
from chaos." Algebra was a branch of mathematics and also the art
of bone-setting, and both meanings are still used in Spain.
TEACHERS' SCHOOL OF SCIENCE.
BY FRANCES ZIRNGIEBEL.
"He who would most effectually improve school tuition must find out
the most effectual way of improving the teachers. Hence he is the
greatest educational benefactor who does most to raise the character
and qualifications of the teachers," said John D. Philbrick, late
superintendent of the public schools of the city of Boston, in his
twenty-third semiannual report. By providing teachers with the best
instruction on subjects the teaching of which was at the time of
making this report, and is still, unsatisfactory, The Teachers' School
of Science of the Boston Society of Natural History has for nearly
three decades been a great educational benefactor. It stands unique as
an institution which, while doing a great work for many years, has
presented nothing of startling nature such as would attract the
attention of the general public, and is therefore not so widely known
as it deserves to be.
During a conversation held at the council room of the Boston Society
of Natural History, in 1870, between Prof. Alpheus Hyatt and the late
Mr. John C. Cummings, a Boston merchant interested in natural history
and curator of the plant collection of the society for twenty odd
years, the latter expressed regret that the Lowell lectures for
teachers had been discontinued. Professor Hyatt then suggested to him
a plan for lectures for teachers exclusively. That afternoon Mr.
Cummings gave five hundred dollars for the commencement of such a
course, and soon after the matter was brought before a committee
consisting of Mr. Cummings, Professor Hyatt, and Professor Niles.
[Illustration: ALPHEUS HYATT.]
[Illustration: JOHN CUMMINGS.]
Under the direction of the committee the courses of lessons were given
as follows: physical geography, by Prof. William H. Niles, of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology; mineralogy, by Mr. W. C.
Greenough, of the Providence Normal School; zoölogy, by Prof. Alpheus
Hyatt, then custodian of the Boston Society of Natural History;
botany, by Dr. W. G. Farlow, of Cambridge--in all thirty-three
lessons. These courses were wholly tentative and experimental, but
attained success that was most encouraging.
[Illustration: WILLIAM H. NILES.]
Through the kindness of Professor Runkle, President of the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Huntington Hall, in which so
many great scientists have spoken, was opened for the first lesson in
geography. Professor Niles here delivered six lectures. "He undertook
to give the more general features of the earth's surface, and then to
apply these general principles to the explanation of the physical
characteristics of Massachusetts." The success of this course may be
judged by the average attendance, which was about six hundred teachers
of all grades, and by the fact that the teaching of geography in some
of the public schools at once underwent a change in favor of the more
natural method introduced by him.
[Illustration: ON THE RIGHT, BUILDING OF THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL
HISTORY; ON THE LEFT, ROGERS'S BUILDING OF THE MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE
OF TECHNOLOGY.]
"On account of the necessity of actually handling and dissecting
specimens, the tickets issued for the succeeding lessons were limited,
and at the six lessons on mineralogy and eleven on zoölogy there was
an average attendance of about fifty-five. The materials for the
course in zoölogy were gathered in sufficient abundance through the
extraordinary facilities for collecting marine animals afforded by
Prof. S. F. Baird, United States Commissioner of Fisheries; those for
the course in botany were furnished with equal readiness and
generosity by Prof. Asa Gray from his botanical garden at Cambridge."
The society's attempt to introduce natural history into the public
schools met with favor at the hands of the superintendent, Mr.
Philbrick, and a committee of school principals was appointed, with
Mr. James A. Page as chairman, who canvassed the teachers regarding
this matter. Accordingly, in October, 1871, a circular was sent to
teachers which said that lessons were to be given by "professors
familiar with the object methods of teaching and skillful in the use
of chalk." Seven hundred teachers signed this circular, and so
signified their pleasure at the prospect of receiving such
instruction.
While Mr. Cummings was generously providing these courses of lectures
exclusively for the benefit of teachers, Mr. John A. Lowell, trustee
of the Lowell Institute Fund, made liberal provision for free courses
on different branches of natural science, to which teachers were
specially invited and which were well adapted to their wants, although
not intended exclusively for them. During the winter of 1872-'73, on
account of the large fire in Boston and the absence of Professor Hyatt
in Europe, the lessons in The Teachers' School of Science were
necessarily suspended. In the autumn of 1874 they were resumed and
supported by renewed donations from Mr. Cummings. Mr. L. S. Burbank
gave thirty lessons on minerals, and distributed the specimens used at
the lectures among the teachers. These minerals were then used in the
schools for instruction. This was virtually the introduction of the
teaching of natural science in the public schools of Boston. The
following winter Mr. Burbank continued his teaching by giving fourteen
lessons in lithology to a class averaging ninety in attendance. One
hundred sets of seventy-five specimens each were distributed, and many
of these sets placed in collections of the city schools. "A
supplementary course of field lessons about Boston was voluntarily
conducted by Mr. Burbank, who had in his class this year seventy-five
per cent of the members of the class in mineralogy of the previous
year. This class included a large number of the busiest teachers of
Boston and vicinity, and each member of the class was provided with
tools, consisting of a small hammer, magnet, file, streak stone of
Arkansas quartzite, a bottle of dilute acid, a glass rod, and the
scale of hardness previously used in the mineralogical course."
In 1876 women were admitted to the Society of Natural History, and in
that way further privileges were granted to teachers. As in previous
years, through the liberality of Mr. Cummings, the lessons were
continued, and a course of twenty-one lessons in morphological,
physiological, and systematic botany was given by Prof. George L.
Goodale, of Harvard University. Each lesson was illustrated by
specimens which were distributed to the students. The analysis of the
flowers and the determination of the peculiarities of floral structure
were considered by Professor Goodale an important part of the course.
For this purpose blank forms were distributed to the teachers, which
enabled each one to pursue his examination of the flower in hand
independently, and made it possible for the instructor to cover more
ground than would have been practical by any other method. There was
an unusually large attendance at these lessons, averaging one hundred.
The following year Professor Goodale continued to teach in the school,
giving twenty lectures on the principles of systematic botany. Printed
synopses of the lectures were placed in the hands of the teachers, and
nearly all the large orders of plants were illustrated by specimens or
diagrams. The teachers were also provided with dried and named
specimens of native plants suitable for private herbaria. About one
hundred and fifty sets of these plants were distributed during the
course, at which the attendance was even greater than that of the
previous year.
[Illustration: GEORGE L. GOODALE.]
It was at this time that, through the efforts of Miss Lucretia
Crocker, the study of zoölogy was introduced into the high schools of
Boston, and the study of Nature in the public schools took a definite
form. At this time The Teachers' School of Science attained an
extraordinary size and importance, a development which was sudden and
unexpected. The supervisor of Nature study, Miss Crocker, assured the
directors of the school that their assistance would be of great
benefit, and in fact essential, to the success of the introduction of
this subject into the schools. It was therefore determined to
institute appropriate courses upon elementary botany, zoölogy, and
mineralogy, if the means of paying the expenses could be raised. Mrs.
S. T. Hooper and Miss Crocker undertook a considerable amount of the
necessary work, and fortunately their scheme met with substantial
appreciation from Mrs. Augustus Hemmenway, who subscribed most
liberally, and they were assured of further support and interest.
Obstacles arose on account of the number of applicants and the
necessity of providing identical specimens for all. The association
and sympathy of Mrs. Elizabeth Agassiz with the undertaking was
particularly gratifying, since Prof. Louis Agassiz was the first
naturalist who ever taught the popular audiences in this country with
the specimens in hand. Large sums of money were contributed by women,
many members of the Natural History Society, and the teachers
themselves joined in making up the necessary fund. The Institute of
Technology generously gave the use of Huntington Hall upon the payment
of a nominal sum for cleaning and heating. Count Pourtalés, Dr.
Hermann Hagan, and Mr. E. C. Hamlin, of the Museum of Comparative
Zoölogy, which was under the direction of Mr. Alexander Agassiz, at
various times assisted by donations from their respective departments.
Further assistance in various ways, such as the drawing of zoölogical
charts, preparations of models, and donations of specimens, was
received from other persons. There were six hundred and sixteen
applicants for this winter's course, and the number of specimens
distributed did not fall short of one hundred thousand. After an
introductory lecture, at which the Superintendent of Public Schools,
the President of the Society of Natural History, and the custodian,
delivered addresses appropriate to the occasion, Professor Goodale
completed a course of six lessons on botany, in which he instructed
the whole audience of five hundred. These lessons were followed the
same year by twelve on zoölogy by Professor Hyatt, and five on
mineralogy by Mr. Burbank, which ended with a geological excursion to
Marblehead. These lessons were given to very large classes, and were
supplemented by the issuing of pamphlets under the general title of
Science Guides. Three numbers--About Pebbles, by Professor Hyatt; A
Few Common Plants, by Dr. Goodale; and Commercial and Other Sponges,
by Professor Hyatt and others--were published by Messrs. Ginn and
Heath, who have since brought out many such helps.
After a winter of intense activity there came a period of repose, and
no lectures were given the next season. After lying quiet for a year
the school once more came into active operation. Mrs. Quincy A. Shaw
and Mrs. Augustus Hemmenway showed their sympathy with the efforts on
behalf of education by most generously assuming the whole expense of
the lessons given that year. Immediate measures were taken to carry
out the plan which had been arranged several years before, which
consisted in giving a series of lessons which would be a good
preparation for a course in physiography. Accordingly, Professor
Cross, of the Institute of Technology, was engaged to give eight
lessons in physics, Professor Hyatt following with eight on the
physical relations of animals to the earth; Professor Goodale gave
four treating of plants in the same way, and Mr. W. O. Crosby
concluded the course with four lectures on the relations of geological
agencies to physiography. The applications for tickets to these
lectures so far exceeded the expectations of the committee that they
were forced to duplicate them, each speaker repeating his lesson on
the same day before a different audience.
[Illustration: WILLIAM O. CROSBY.]
After this the work of The Teachers' School of Science was taken under
the protection of the Lowell Fund, Mr. Augustus Lowell sending word
that he would make an annual donation of fifteen hundred dollars. Mr.
Lowell allowed the Natural History Society to make engagements and
announce lectures one year beforehand, and also gave the use of
Huntington Hall. Eighteen lectures were given that winter, under the
title of the Lowell Free Lectures in The Teachers' School of Science.
Eight of these lectures were on physics, by Professor Cross; five on
geology, by Mr. Crosby; five on physiology, by Dr. H. P. Bowditch, of
the Harvard Medical School, and all were very successful and well
attended by the teachers. The Teachers' School of Science had another
branch in active operation, which was courses of laboratory lessons
paid for by the teachers themselves.
[Illustration: LABORATORY OF THE BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY
USED BY CLASSES OF THE TEACHERS' SCHOOL OF SCIENCE.]
Through the liberality and co-operation of the Woman's Education
Association the Society of Natural History was able to announce that a
seaside laboratory, under the direction of Professor Hyatt and capable
of accommodating a limited number of students, would be open at
Annisquam, Massachusetts, from June 5th to September 15th inclusive.
The purpose of this laboratory was to afford opportunities for study
and observation to the development, anatomy, and habits of common
types of marine animals under suitable direction and advice. It was
believed that such a laboratory would meet the wants of many teachers
who had attended practical lessons in The Teachers' School of Science.
Twenty-two persons--ten women and twelve men (nearly double the number
expected)--availed themselves of the privileges offered. The summer
work, which was very successful, was due to the ability and energy of
Mr. B. H. Van Vleck, who had the whole charge of the instruction and
work done in the laboratory. The seaside laboratory continued to be
used successfully in the same way during seven consecutive summers,
and the work of the laboratory materially influenced the future
science teaching in several colleges and in many public schools of
this country. In 1886 Professor Hyatt called the attention of the
Woman's Education Association and the society to the fact that the
laboratory had reached a stage when it could claim the support of
patrons of science and learning, and be placed on an independent and
permanent foundation. The two associations accordingly called a
meeting, made up largely of the representative teachers of biology,
who decided to make an effort to establish a permanent biological
laboratory and raise at least fifteen hundred dollars to carry it on
for five years. The result was the foundation of the Marine Biological
Laboratory, at Woods Holl, which now attracts to its general courses
teachers and other students from all over the land, and also maintains
a department for special research work.
In 1882 agents were obtained, by correspondence and through the
kindness of the Secretary of the State Board of Education, Mr.
Dickinson, in forty-four towns, who distributed tickets and filled out
blanks so that the benefits of The Teachers' School of Science were
extended beyond the limits of Boston. In this year there were two
courses, one of ten lessons, by Professor Niles, on physical
geography, and five on physiology, by Dr. H. P. Bowditch. These
courses began in November and continued throughout the whole year,
with a decrease in attendance after the Christmas and April holidays.
These lessons were followed by five on elementary chemistry, by Prof.
L. M. Norton, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His
subjects were as follows: First Principles of Chemistry; the next,
Chemistry of Air, Chemistry of Water, Chemistry of Combustion,
Chemistry of Metallic Elements. There were also five on Practical
Examination, with Simple Apparatus of the Physics and Chemistry of
Vegetable Physiology, by Professor Goodale, which were divided as
follows: (1) Vegetable Assimilation, the mode in which plants prepare
food for themselves and animals; (2) The Kinds of Food Stored in
Vegetable Organs, illustrations of the starches, sugars, oils, and
albuminoidal matters; (3) How Food is used by Plants and Animals in a
Formation of New Parts, mechanics of growth; (4) How Food is Used in
Work of all Kinds by Different Organisms; (5) Adaptations of Organisms
to Extremes of Heat and Light, chiefly with respect to geographical
distribution. This session was concluded with a series of five lessons
on Chemical Principles illustrated by Common Minerals, by Professor
Crosby.
At the beginning of this season there was the usual large attendance,
with teachers from thirty towns, but the number was slowly reduced. It
was evident to the curator that the decline in attendance was not due
to the subjects nor the mode in which they were treated, but from
fatigue on the part of the teachers, and this state of affairs caused
him to say in his annual report that "proper and wise forethought
should long ago have given teachers a portion of every week besides
the usual Saturday holiday for the pursuit of information needed for
teaching new subjects." He believed that the efficiency of the
individual teacher would be greatly increased by this expedient, and
that the pupils would gain more than they lost by the shortening of
the school hours.
At the request of the Superintendent of Schools the curator gave the
following year ten lessons, which were directed mainly to the subjects
put down in the course of study under the title of Elementary Science
Lessons. In his course in Elementary Mineralogy, Professor Crosby
followed the plan indicated by Mrs. E. H. Richards in one of the
science guides--First Lessons in Minerals. The curator, for his course
on Structure and Habits of Worms, Insects, and Vertebrates, used many
specimens which had been tanned by a process which was then in use.
Over twenty-eight thousand zoölogical specimens were given away in two
years. Professor Crosby, with a class of sixty, continued the course
of the previous year, giving lessons in the mineralogical laboratory
of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the specimens there
studied were retained by the teachers.
In the winter of 1888-'89 Professor Crosby, using for his auditorium
Huntington Hall, gave a course of ten lessons on the geology of Boston
and vicinity. "The object of the lessons was to acquaint the teachers
of Boston and vicinity with natural opportunities by which they are
surrounded, and specially to show them how to use these opportunities
for their own culture and the benefit of their pupils. The subject was
treated in accordance with the following scheme: (1) A general study
of the physical features of the Boston basin and of the geological
changes now in progress in this region; (2) a systematic study of the
various minerals and rocks found in the Boston basin, together with
the more characteristic kinds of structure which they exhibit; (3) a
summary of the geological history of the district so far as that is
plainly recorded in the rocks. The course was freely illustrated by
maps and diagrams, also to a large extent by specimens, more than ten
thousand of which were distributed. Special pains were taken at every
step of the work to indicate the localities where phenomena such as
were described in the lessons might be most advantageously studied.
This comprehensive course formed suitable preparation for a second
series of lessons, the principal object of which was to apply the
principles taught by the first series to a thorough and detailed study
of the physical history of the Boston basin. Each important locality
in the section under consideration formed the subject of a separate
lesson, in which its structural features and the more important events
of its history were presented. Special attention was given to tracing
the relations of the existing surface features of each district to its
geological structure, thus connecting the physical geography and
geology of the region. These lectures were based on a large amount of
original investigation and results reached by Professor Crosby in his
studies of the Boston basin."
During the winter of 1886-'87 Prof. W. M. Davis delivered a course on
Problems in Physical Geographic Classification, treated of in two
lessons, and the Laws of the Evolution of the Principal Topographical
Types occupied the remainder of the course. Professor Davis gave the
class the benefit of the results of his investigations, which were
original contributions of importance to the progress of physical
geography. "The graphic manner of illustrating the lessons upon the
Glacial period and the effects of the great glacier upon the area of
the Great Lakes was very effective. This was shown by means of a
relief model whose surface was composed of an ingenious arrangement of
overlying and differently painted surfaces. By removing these in
succession the lecturer traced the whole history of changes following
upon the recession of a continental glacier and its effects upon the
surface waters.... These lessons were so novel and useful to teachers
that he was invited to give a course of ten lessons during the next
winter upon the physical geography of the United States. New matter,
new models, and more extended illustrations were used in this course.
The objects of the course were: To illustrate the value of systematic
classification in the study of physical geography in order that forms
of similar origin might be grouped together; to advocate the
importance of studying the evolution of geographic forms in time, so
that forms similar in origin but dissimilar in age (and consequently
in degree of development) might be regarded as their natural
relations; to apply these principles to the physical geography of our
own land; and, finally, to promote the use of models in geographic
teaching. The different parts of the country were considered in this
order: The mountains as constituting the framework of the continent,
the plains and plateaus flanking the mountains, the rivers carrying
the waste of the land into the ocean, the lakes temporarily
interrupting the transportation of waste to the ocean and retarding
the action of the rivers, the shore line where the land dips under the
sea."
Persons interested in the improvement of the teaching of geography in
the public schools suggested to the trustee of the Lowell Institute
the advisability of hearing again from Professor Davis, and the
curator was requested to invite him to give a course of eight lectures
on geography in the autumn and winter of 1897-'98. The subjects
treated of in these lessons were selected from among those presented
by Professor Davis in his course on geography in the Harvard Summer
School, as they afforded material most directly applicable to the work
of grammar-school teachers. At the end of each meeting opportunity was
given for individual conference on questions suggested by the
lectures. This course excited more interest among teachers than any
which had been given since the beginning of the school, and it was
consequently a serious disappointment to many teachers when it became
known that Mr. Lowell did not feel able to re-engage Professor Davis
and continue this kind of instruction.
The same winter that Professor Davis gave his first course on physical
geography Prof. F. W. Putnam, of Harvard University, Curator of
Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Anthropology at Cambridge,
and now President of the American Association for the Advancement of
Science, gave lessons on American archæology. The topics selected
covered the whole range of the remains of prehistoric man and his life
on this continent so far as these subjects could be presented in ten
lessons. The original methods of research elaborated by Professor
Putnam, which have placed his name among the first in his department
of archæological work, rendered this course remarkably interesting and
instructive. Specimens were studied and given away in sufficient
numbers to illustrate the modes of making stone implements and some of
the different kinds of pottery. Professor Putnam invited the teachers
to visit the Peabody Museum, and there gave them an opportunity to
inspect the larger objects which it had not been possible to bring
into the city. The audience became so interested in the famous serpent
mound in Ohio, which was then threatened with destruction, that a
subscription was started which finally made it possible to purchase
and preserve this ancient monument.
[Illustration: F. W. PUTNAM.]
The winter succeeding the lessons on archæology, Mr. B. H. Van Vleck,
who had spent a considerable portion of the previous summer in
preparing specimens for this work, gave fifteen lessons on zoölogy.
The study of the general morphology of animals was made under
advantages such as had never before been offered in this school, and
enabled teachers to see and study structures not usually within their
reach. The work was mainly directed to the observation and study of a
limited number of types, but general points in physiology and anatomy
were also taken up in a comparative way. The microscope was also used
in this work. This special course was continued during the next two
terms.
Dr. J. Walter Fewkes gave a series of ten lessons, during the winter
of 1890-'91, on Common Marine Animals from Massachusetts Bay. Special
attention was given to the mode of life, differences in external
forms, local distribution, habitats, methods and proper times to
collect the eggs, young, and adults. The anatomy, embryology, and
morphology of the species considered were dealt with incidentally.
[Illustration: J. WALTER FEWKES.]
"The relative abundance of species and individuals, local causes which
influenced distribution, the rocky or sandy nature of the shores and
their characteristic faunæ, and the influence of depth of water tides
and temperature, were also considered."
The relations and boundaries of the marine fauna of New England were
treated of under the following heads: Comparison of the Fauna of
Massachusetts Bay with that of Narragansett Bay and the Bay of Fundy,
and Causes of the Differences Observed; Pelagic Animals; Littoral and
Shallow-Water Genera; Introduced and Indigenous Marine Animals; and
Marine Animals which inhabit both Brackish and Fresh Water.
It having been found that for several years the audiences at the
general courses had been decreasing, it became evident that the giving
of general information had accomplished a mission, but that there was
a demand for more specialized courses of study and that a change of
policy was warranted. It was therefore determined to abandon the
general courses and continue the special prolonged laboratory courses.
Since 1891 all lessons have been given either in the form of
laboratory lessons or field work, and the school was organized and
conducted upon a new and more effective basis. The teachers have been
required to keep notebooks and attend examinations in order to be
candidates for the certificates which have been, and will continue to
be, granted to those who have completed a series of lessons.
In the fall of 1890 was begun a course of lessons on paleontology
which had been planned for some time but had not been previously
undertaken because the teachers lacked the knowledge of the elements
of zoölogy and geology which was a necessary preparation for those
taking up the study of the history of animals as found in the earth's
crust. The members of this class, which now began to make systematic
observations upon fossils, were found to be sufficiently prepared to
study certain groups which illustrated the laws of evolution. The
class was limited in number and was under the instruction of Professor
Hyatt, who for five years conducted the most advanced course of
lessons ever given in The Teachers' School of Science, and such as
have not elsewhere been offered to teachers nor to many classes of
college students.
The lessons began with general instruction in the use of the
microscope, the structure of cells and their union and differentiation
into tissues, and then a study of simplest organisms--_Protozoa_. The
work was continued through _Porifera_, _Hydrozoa_, and _Actinozoa_,
and the types of fossils compared with their living representatives.
The periods of occurrence of fossilized remains in the rocks were
noted, and the characteristics of the different periods mentioned, but
details of stratigraphic character were subordinated to the tracing
out of the relations of the animals and the laws which governed the
evolution of their forms. Special attention was given to those classes
whose history is most complete and which furnish the best specimens
for examination.
_Echinodermata_, represented by a large number of both living and
fossil forms, was made the subject of study the second winter. The
common starfish was examined in detail, and with it were compared
other members of its class--_Asteroidea_, living and fossil forms in
_Ophiuridea_ and _Echinoidea_, the modern _Holothuroidea_, the ancient
_Blastoids_ and _Cystoids_, and both extinct and modern _Crinoids_,
the last of which were illustrated by alcohol specimens of
_Comatula_. Professor Hyatt was assisted in giving these lessons by
Miss J. M. Arms, who, in conjunction with him, had previously written
the largest of the Science Guides--entitled Insecta--and by Dr. Robert
T. Jackson, who has done much work on this group of fossils. One
member of the class a few years ago, after receiving these lessons,
looked over and prepared a large number of fossils, principally
_Crinoids_, belonging to the Natural History Society, and discovered a
form of paleozoic _Echinoderm_, which proved to be an interesting new
species and was described by Dr. Jackson as _Lepidesthes Wortheni_.
The third year of this series consisted of lessons on _Brachiopoda_
exclusively. Professor Hyatt was at that time in correspondence with
Dr. C. E. Beecher, of Yale, the distinguished paleontologist, who has
made remarkable discoveries and was then investigating _Brachiopoda_,
and communications from him regarding this group were from time to
time read to the class. "The sudden expansion or the quick evolution
in the earlier periods of the earth's history and the slower evolution
of the same types in their progressive history, after a period of
sudden expansion had been passed through," were shown in several
series.
The ancestral form of this group, the phylembryo, has been found in
_Paterina_, whose adult represents the youngest stage, the beak of the
shell, of other _Brachiopods_. There was, therefore, unusual
opportunity to here illustrate theories of evolution, particularly the
theory of constitutional tendency involving a conception of the youth,
maturity, and senescence of species. In order to make the instruction
clearer, terms used for the different stages of development by
Professor Hyatt in his writings on bioplastology were explained to and
used by the class.
The many specimens used in this study were carefully figured in the
notebooks, and the teachers became so familiar with them that they
were able to pass at the end of the term a severe examination. The
final test of the season's work consisted of three parts: The passing
in of lecture notebooks, the naming and classifying of a dozen fossils
selected by the professor, and the answering of a set of difficult
questions.
On account of the amount of time required for this course, and because
the lessons were such as were not directly applicable to work in the
public schools, the attendance decreased. The number who continued,
however, were those who felt that a broad scientific education is
necessary to the best teaching of even elementary science.
The fourth year was devoted to _Mollusca_, _Cephalopoda_ in
particular, and the class was fortunate in having for its teacher one
whose investigations in this latter group have given him world-wide
fame.
The evolution of the group from its straight radical form, now named
and called _Diphragnoceros_, was traced through the bent, curved, and
coiled forms of the _Nautiloids_, _Ammonoids_, and _Belamites_. The
phylogeny of the _Ammonoids_ presented a complete cycle, late forms
entirely uncoiling and presenting the straight characters of their
ancestors.
The study of _Cephalopods_ amply illustrated the neo-Lamarckian theory
of evolution, including the inheritance of acquired characters which
is now believed by most paleontologists.
The fifth and last year of this course included the study of
_Arthropoda_ and _Vertebrata_. The insects presented many
illustrations for the theory of natural selection, which the
neo-Lamarckians consider an aid, but a subordinate factor, in the
origin of species.
About this time Poulton gave a series of twelve lectures on animal
coloration at the Lowell Institute, drawing his illustrations mainly
from insects. Many of the students of The Teachers' School of Science
in zoölogy and paleontology attended these lectures.
After working on fishes, batrachians, reptiles, birds, and mammals, in
which the structural development of some animals--man, for
example--was found to be retrogressive and the physiological
development progressive, the lessons closed with the study of man's
structure as compared with the anthropoid apes and the few remains of
prehistoric man, and finally with a discussion of the works of
paleolithic man.
The teachers who had attended this course throughout the five years
and had passed satisfactory examinations have been presented with
diplomas testifying to their proficiency.
[_To be continued._]
PROPER OBJECTS OF THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF
SCIENCE.
BY EDWARD ORTON,
PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY IN OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY; PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.
The objects of the American Association for the Advancement of Science
are clearly expressed in the opening paragraph of its constitution,
which was adopted at its first meeting, held September 20, 1848, in
Philadelphia. From that day to this the paragraph referred to has not
been modified except by the replacement of three words, viz., "the
United States" by a single and more comprehensive word--"America."
As here defined, the objects of the association are "to promote
intercourse between those who are cultivating science in different
parts of America, to give a stronger and more general impulse and a
more systematic direction to scientific research in our country, and
to procure for the labors of scientific men increased facilities and a
wider usefulness."
Three distinct elements are included in this general statement, viz.:
(1) The cultivation of personal intercourse or acquaintance among the
workers in science in this country; (2) the encouragement, extension,
and proper direction of scientific research; (3) the gaining of
popular recognition and good will for the results of scientific work.
These objects may be conveniently summarized as (1) _social_, (2)
_scientific_, (3) _practical_.
There is nothing in the original paragraph to indicate whether the
elements of this threefold division were counted of equal value, or
whether they were arranged in either an ascending or descending scale
of importance, but from the fact that in the development and expansion
of the association during the last fifty years nothing has been added
to and nothing subtracted from this general statement, while in many
other divisions of the constitution large and sometimes radical
changes have been adopted, it seems safe to conclude that the present
members of the association see its work and office in very much the
same light as its founders did.
But, while sailing under the old colors and apparently by the old
charts, it is quite possible that the association is, insensibly to
itself, undergoing modification more or less important. Such an
experience is unavoidable in all human institutions, at least in those
that retain their vitality in state, society, or church.
The fifty years that cover the life of the association are
unquestionably the most important, so far as the growth of science is
concerned, in the history of the race. Within this period every
science has been recast and rewritten, and divisions and subdivisions
of the old units have gone forward and are still in progress. Of every
one of these sciences the boundaries have been so enormously extended
that even the _dream_ of universal knowledge on the part of any man
has gone by, never to return. Leibnitz, it has been said, was the last
of the intellectual giants of old who mastered all that was knowable
in his day. Alexander von Humboldt could almost claim the same for the
knowledge of Nature that was attainable in the first quarter of our
century. But since the application of the compound microscope to the
study of Nature and the subdivisions of the sciences that have
resulted therefrom, and especially since the extension of the method
of science to all the branches of anthropology, as language, history,
institutions, the task of mastering all that is known is seen to be
altogether too great for finite powers and span-long lives.
It might well be, therefore, in view of the amazing changes that have
taken place in the entire field covered by the association, that it
should have outgrown the aims and ambitions of its early days. The
fact that it continues to use the identical statement of its objects
with which it began its work, while it does not definitely settle the
question, affords at least presumptive evidence that no such change
has taken place.
How, then, do the objects originally recognized by the association as
its _raison d'être_ correspond to the needs of our own time?
1. Is the _social_ feature of the association, to which the first
place was assigned by the founders, whether by design or not, worthy
of preservation by us? In other words, is it as important "to promote
intercourse between those who are cultivating science in America" at
the close of the nineteenth century as it was at the middle of the
century--the need that was responded to by the formation of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science? While
revolutionary changes have taken place in the country at large during
this period in modes of travel, facilities for acquiring education,
and the diffusion of intelligence, it would be hard to show why the
need in this field should be in any respect less urgent. There is a
far larger number of people who are cultivating science, and there are
many more branches of science to be cultivated.
What particular service is to be expected from such intercourse as the
association seeks to provide? The gathering of the workers in the
diverse fields of science into a single organization has a tendency to
_unify_ them. They find that a common spirit animates them, that they
all make use of essentially the same method of research or inquiry,
and that the results which they reach all have a common note of
certainty, being herewith differentiated from other and older views on
the same subjects, as knowledge differs from opinion. They are thus
led to see more clearly than they could otherwise see the unity of the
universe, that knowledge is one, and that each science is but a facet
cut on the crystal sphere of natural truth, touching other facets at
many points, and by no means independent, but supported by the
integrity of the sphere.
Such a gathering tends to an increase of mutual respect and confidence
on the part of all engaged in scientific work. It tends to discourage
the narrow conceit of the specialist, who, if left entirely to his own
tastes, comes to think that his own facet is the only one that
deserves to be regarded, and practically to ignore its relation to the
sphere of which it constitutes an essential though a minor part.
Such an association tends toward making specialists intelligible to
each other. In other words, it puts a premium on the art of
popularizing science, for when the specialist makes himself
intelligible to his brethren in their widely separated fields he makes
himself intelligible to all educated men, whether especially trained
in science or not.
The specialist is under a strong temptation to limit himself to a
language of his own, which is an unknown tongue even to the rest of
the scientific world. Technical terms, carried out to minute
subdivisions, are indispensable in every branch of modern science, but
the student of any science is in an evil state who can not present his
results to the world without appealing to the technical jargon of the
branch which he cultivates.
There even seems a reluctance on the part of some to use plain
language in stating scientific conclusions, as if the cheapening of
science were feared by its being made intelligible. Such a fear is
certainly unworthy. The masters have never felt it. In lucidity and
directness of speech and in general intelligibility Tyndall, Huxley,
and Darwin were not surpassed by any men of their generation. To whom
are we as much indebted for the great advance of science in their day
as to these very men?
If the scientist neglects this popularizing of science, the sciolist
is sure to take it up, and his work in this field always makes the
judicious grieve. Is there not possible danger that this phase of
scientific work and the function of the association corresponding
thereto are losing consideration to some extent?
But instead of its being true that the scientific work of the country
has outgrown the need of the association, is it not rather true that
we are in far more urgent need of its unifying agency than even the
founders were fifty years ago? We have all the divisions of science
that were then recognized, and half as many more. Physics and
chemistry could then be classed in one section without offense, and
zoölogy and botany were assigned without protest to a single heading.
Now, not only does every science demand recognition by and of itself,
but all are represented by separate societies as well--as the
Mathematical Society, the Chemical Society, the Geological Society,
etc. These societies hold meetings, publish bulletins, reports, and
sometimes monthly journals, and, in short, aim to cover the entire
field for the branches which they represent. They are generally
affiliated with the association, and it is becoming usual for them to
hold joint summer meetings of society and section. Their annual
meetings are held in the winter, and, as their membership is more
select than that of the association, standing as it does in all cases
for published or recognized work already in evidence, these winter
meetings are coming to be preferred for the presentation of technical
papers. Those who read them feel sure of "fit audience, though few."
These societies are all vigorous and successful. They obviously meet a
"felt want" on the part of American science, but just what their
effect will be upon the association remains to be determined.
Certainly, with these centrifugal tendencies in growing activity, this
is not the time for the attraction of our one centripetal force to be
relaxed. More than ever do we need such a unifying agency as the
association was designed to supply.
Some _modus vivendi_ between section and society will doubtless be
found. Perhaps the more abstract and technical papers will be reserved
for the winter meetings, while those dealing with the larger phases,
and especially those pertaining to the philosophy of the subjects
discussed, will find their places in the joint meetings of the summer.
It would be well if the association meetings of whatever character
could be made memorable by the announcement of important discoveries
made during the preceding year. The custom of holding back such
announcements is said to obtain in the transatlantic national
associations, and notably in the British Association, which is the
mother of all the rest. Those who were present at the Boston meeting
of the American Association will remember the enthusiasm created there
by the announcement of the discovery of a new element--etherion. If
later discussions have thrown doubt upon the discovery of a new
element, the alternative explanation suggested of the facts proves
scarcely less interesting or important than the original claim.
Whether our eager American workers would be willing to hazard their
claims to priority by holding back the announcements of their
discoveries for months after they have been made is a question, but
the foreign practice in this regard has certainly much to commend it.
It would be a calamity of real magnitude to American science if the
sectional meetings of the association were abandoned to men who have
not done enough approved work to entitle them to places in the several
societies already named. The old title--The American Association for
the Advancement of Science--might still be retained, it is true, but
what a humiliating misnomer it would be if none of the men who _have_
advanced science in the past by their labors and none of those who are
prepared to advance it in the future by their training were now
included! It would be the omission of the part of Hamlet from the
play.
The foremost men in all the societies, our leaders in the branches
represented there, owe it to themselves, owe it much more to the great
name of American science, to maintain and magnify their connection
with, their service to, the American Association.
At the second meeting of the association it was the illustrious Joseph
Henry who called the attention of his brethren to the fact that the
organization was, by its very name, consecrated to the _advancement_
of science--to the discovery of new truth. He reminded them that the
association was not designed to furnish opportunity for the
restatement of what was already known. Its purpose was rather to add
to the existing body of knowledge in the world. Let not the hopes of
the founders be brought to naught by allowing the organization from
which they expected so much to be thus eviscerated!
We see, then, that the _social feature_, with what it legitimately
includes, deserves to hold as prominent a place among the objects of
the association at the end of the century as was given to it by its
founders when first established.
Two other objects which were deemed worthy of being incorporated into
the organic law of the association remain to be considered. To the
treatment of each a few words will be devoted. Neither of them
commands as high regard from us as they seem to have had at the
beginning.
2. The second object of the association as declared by the founders
was "to give a stronger and more general impulse and a more systematic
direction to scientific research in our country."
It is not easy for those who were born after the middle point of the
century to think themselves back into the conditions under which the
words above quoted were written. At that time there were but two or
three schools of science in the United States, and not one west of the
seaboard. The degrees of bachelor, master, and doctor of science were
unknown. There was but one journal of science published in the
country, and foreign scientific journals and reviews, comparatively
weak and few at the best, seldom found their way to the New World. The
men who cultivated science were widely separated, and for the most
part rarely met their peers. As a natural consequence, there must have
been more or less misdirected effort. Many a worker must have attacked
problems already solved, or have attacked them by inadequate or
obsolete methods.
How great the changes that fifty years have wrought in this country,
in the world indeed, in all these respects! Now there is not a State
in the Union that has not at least one fairly equipped school of
science, and in some of the older States such schools can be counted
by the dozen or the score. These schools are manned by teachers
trained at the foremost centers of science in this country and Europe,
familiar with all the great problems and with all the most improved
methods of research. Moreover, on the library table of every one of
these schools are the latest periodicals and special reports of the
two continents in which science is cultivated. The untrained and
isolated investigator can no longer justify his existence. There is no
occasion for the survival of such qualities as these terms imply.
This wonderful transformation in educational scope and methods effects
to a great degree just what the founders hoped to accomplish through
the agency of the association. The ground has thus been cut from under
the second of the objects of the association as avowed in its
constitution. In other words, while the result aimed at deserved the
prominence given to it fifty years ago, it no longer depends on the
association for its accomplishment.
3. The third of the objects which the association was organized to
accomplish was "to procure for the labors of scientific men increased
facilities and a wider usefulness." This clause evidently refers to
the endowment of science by founding and equipping institutions,
professorships, laboratories, museums, and the like, and to a more
cordial and general appreciation of the results of scientific work.
In this direction, also, such immense progress has been made in the
country at large that the need of special effort in this line no
longer exists. Munificent gifts to science from private fortunes are
now the order of the day. It is a poor year for science in America
when such contributions do not exceed a million dollars. This work was
begun in the large way under the elder Agassiz, and the Museum of
Comparative Zoölogy at Cambridge is its first important monument. It
has gone forward in the addition of scientific departments worthy of
the name to the older institutions of learning, and in the
establishment of new institutions wholly devoted to science.
Such beneficent use of private wealth, the unparalleled increase of
which during the last fifty years has become a matter of grave concern
to the whole body politic, does more than anything else can do to
reconcile the public to the conditions which make such accumulations
possible. Still more significant is the policy which the General
Government entered upon, forty years ago, of establishing, in
conjunction with the several States, schools of general and applied
science. The State colleges and universities thus founded have already
become potent factors in American education, and science lies at the
heart of them all. It would be hard to overrate their influence on the
development of science for time to come.
When the American Association was established, fifty years ago, a new
day was breaking on the world. The men who were cultivating science
then saw something of the conquests over Nature that the new
method--the method of science--rendered possible. They were wise in
demanding that all who use this method should recognize the common
bond. The association was the outcome of that demand.
At the end of the century we who have shared in the mighty advance and
who have been taught by our experience to discard limitations in the
possibilities of the future, feel the same and an even more urgent
need of some unifying and interpreting agency for the ever-widening
fields to which the method of science is now applied.
RACE QUESTIONS IN THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.
BY FERDINAND BLUMENTRITTE.
When I published my article on the History of Separatism in the
Spanish colonies, in the _Deutsche Rundschau_ for July, 1898, I said
that the colored peoples of a colony would always be inclined to
struggle for the independence of their native country, because the
rule of the mother country of the colony makes their access to the
highest positions in the state impossible. I declared, further, that
in the Philippine Islands the contempt manifested toward the colored
tribes by the Spanish press had contributed very much toward making
the gulf between rulers and ruled progressively deeper and harder to
bridge. The natural conceit and sensitiveness of the colored races in
America could never weigh as heavy in the scale as those of the
colored Filipinos do, because in America the creoles and their
numerously represented crosses were the real upholders of separatist
ideas, so that when the idea ripened into an act they held the leading
of the movement in their hands. Indians and negroes have there never
been more than the _plebs contribuens_, or the tributary class, and
"food for cannon." Only in single exceptional cases have leading
spirits ever risen from out of these lower castes; and where the
separatist movement has been confined to these colored primitive
races, as in Haiti, it has led not only to cutting loose from the
mother country, but also to a more or less complete renunciation of
European civilization. In saying this I cast no condemnation upon the
negroes, for, whenever in our civilized states the proletariat and the
populace have struck down or cast out all the cultivated and
half-cultivated classes, the same sort of "nigger management," with
only differences corresponding with the environments, has gained place
among us as in the great islands of the Antilles.
Very different are the conditions in the Philippine Islands; and, in
view of the importance which the "skin question" plays in the conflict
raged by the Americans, I think it proper to deal further with this
fundamental question of Philippine politics, especially since the
journals and the politicians, at least those of America, have given
very little attention to the matter.
The small number of creoles, of whom, besides, the principal part live
in the city of Manila, which the Americans have in their power, would
not alone explain why the war of independence and the formation of the
Philippine republic must be spoken of as pre-eminently the work of
Christian, civilized Malays and mestizos. For there are in America
countries, like Paraguay, where the number of whites is even smaller
than in the Philippine Islands, and yet the separatist movement and
the foundation of the state were the exclusive work of the creoles.
Why has it been thus? Because the Indians and the negroes do not
possess that inclination toward civilization and that capacity for
assimilation that are evident in the colored populations of the
Philippine Islands. It is supposed that the Philippine Malays have
Japanese blood in their veins; but, all the same, whether the
supposition is founded or unfounded, it is certain that not only do
they resemble the Japanese more or less in features, but that also
many mental traits are common to them with these wide-awake Orientals,
and they even excel them in a moral respect. The school statistics
show them superior to their Spanish lords. The Filipinos have no
larger percentage of illiterates than Spain of those who can not read
and write. And, as a bishop exclaimed with astonishment, there are in
those islands villages where it would be hard to find a person unable
to read. The pressure of the colored people to the higher studies and
the special schools far exceeds the percentage which one would
anticipate from their proportion to the whole population. And if we
add to these those who seek their education in Spain and other foreign
countries we shall find Malays and mestizos in the first line, and the
creoles in the last. It should be remarked on this point that many
more natives would have gone to Europe for education if the Spaniards,
and especially the monks, had not perceived conspirators in all
Filipinos who studied away from home. The fear of persecution deterred
many fathers from sending their sons over the sea.
More than ten years ago a prominent monkish writer showed how the
professions of medicine and the law were crowded with Malays and
mestizos. But besides these two professions and that of the secular
clergy the colored Filipinos turned also to engineering and art. With
respect to art, I am not thinking of the skillful goldsmiths and
silversmiths of Manila, although these artificers are among the best,
but I refer to artists of divine gifts, among whom the mestizo F.
Resureccion Hidalgo, resident in Paris, and Don Juan Luna, of the
tribe of Ilokans of northwestern Luzon, brother of the Philippine
minister Antonio Luna, are most conspicuous. Luna is not unknown to us
Germans, for the Leipsic _Illustrirte Zeitung_ some time ago published
a wood engraving of his great prize-crowned picture Spoliarum. The
best testimony to his eminence is the fact that the Spanish Senate
honored this artist, who was then living in Paris, with the commission
to paint for its chamber a pendant to Padilla's famous picture Boabdil
Surrendering the Keys of Granada to the Catholic Queen, and he painted
The Battle of Lepanto. And among the Filipino poets the name of the
great Tagal, Dr. Rizal, has become known to the whole world through
his skill in tragedy.
There is no need of mentioning any other names, for those we have
given are enough to show that these Malays and mestizos are
susceptible of cultivation, and, as Bismarck used to say, "carry a
rocket-charge in their bodies."[6]
[Footnote 6: Einen Raketensatz im Leibe führen.]
As the Spaniards who came to the archipelago were for the most part
only monks or officers, trade, so far as it was not in the hands of
foreigners, was dependent on the participation of the colored
population, particularly of the mestizos. And what of large land
ownership the monkish orders had not absorbed likewise belonged for
the most part to the colored races. None but foreigners and colored
took part in all the great enterprises of the country. The Spaniards
only ruled.
This position of the colored population in the country was the more
perilous to the Spaniards, because the Spanish press, particularly the
monkish journals, systematically treated them with scorn, called them
anthropoids, and denied their capacity to attain European
civilization. The educated Filipinos foamed with rage when spoken to
about these attacks upon their race. "Besides," they said, "it makes
the color of our skin a stigma with the Spanish lords, and with all
Europe too; why thus insult us and in so cowardly a way, when the
censorship at Manila makes it impossible for us to defend ourselves?"
But all these noisy revilings of their race could only outwardly, not
inwardly, disturb the self-esteem of the Malays, because their leading
spirits had by critical psychological studies of the white race
confirmed the opinion of the simple Tagal peasants that the whites are
made out of the same earth as the colored, and that the latter could,
under equal conditions, have done as well as they. Only the whites
have adopted that lordly code of morals which, like the flag with
contraband goods, covers the grossest breaches of right and other
outrages, which a white gentleman would not venture, indeed, to commit
upon his peers, but which, in the treatment of colored men, belong, so
to speak, to good tone, to "European smartness."
The educated brown man generally feels in his intercourse with the
European that uneasiness, that poorly concealed embarrassment, which
the parvenue with us feels in the presence of one of the blue-blooded
aristocracy. He feels every instant that the white man's critical eye
is upon him, and knows that the criticism will be pitiless and harsh
to injustice. He knows, further, that this criticism in every case
does not apply only to him, the individual, but that conclusions are
drawn at once from his errors, even though they may be only presumed,
that are applied to his whole race or caste--conclusions which are
never flattering, but always culminate, in agreement with the scorn of
the superior, in a severe condemnation.
This consciousness of running the gantlet before the eyes of Europeans
often causes the brown man to commit mistakes in European society,
which refuses to pass him among people whose favor he would be sure to
enjoy.
The opinion which Europeans living in the tropics form of the brown
men is generally unfavorable and unjust to them. We Europeans, or
rather our nations and states, already judge one another harshly and
in a more than partisan manner, because we see first only the
weaknesses, often even only the fancied weaknesses, of our neighbors.
How, then, could we expect anything better when a European has to pass
an opinion on a brown man? We should not forget that only those
Europeans go to the tropics who display special energy and force of
will--a kind of chosen lot among our race--while the natives there
include all the levels of the people. If we add to this that all the
Europeans believe in their own superiority and in the inferiority of
the brown men, it will seem quite natural that when the Europeans
begin to make comparisons between themselves and the natives the
comparisons will always be flattering to those who make them.
In the Philippine Islands, on the other hand, the reaction of the
natives against this extreme self-conceit of the whites has been
making itself felt for more than twenty years. This has come to pass
since the philosophical heads among them have carefully studied the
whites in the various countries of Europe, and have in consequence
lost faith in the divine likeness of the Caucasians.
Single examples of the studies of these men have been published, such
as that of the war minister of the Philippine republic, Don Antonio
Luna, a pure-blooded Malay like his brother the painter. Luna studied
in Spain and in Paris (under Pasteur), and lived a little while in
England, so that he had opportunities to become acquainted with three
civilized nations at their home. His literary works are represented to
us in the garb of novels and _feuilletons_, the sarcasm of which,
while it certainly escapes the uninitiated European, will be all the
more effective and precious upon those who are acquainted with the
purpose of the brilliant author, which is to satirize the depreciatory
accounts by European travelers of the land and people of the
Philippine Islands. This he does by telling of his rummaging through
the critics' home and finding all the weaknesses and faults which are
accredited to the brown men as signs of their incapacity no less
prevalent in Europe than in the Philippine archipelago; and arguing
that therefore the whites and the browns differ only in the color of
their skin, in build, and in language, but not in mind.
If space allowed I should be glad to follow my inclination to repeat
some of Luna's descriptions, which are given in a style that reminds
one of Maupassant's. I shall only say that Luna has drawn within the
circle of his observations the movements of all classes in the
aristocratic saloon and in the workman's beerhouse, and remarks that
everything that has been charged against the brown man appears
likewise in the European. The first sketch is excellent. European
travelers speak in their works of the "stupid staring" at their
white-skinned, thoughtful faces by the "brown savages." Luna, whose
pen-name is Taga-ilog,[7] parodies these stories by simply relating
that on his arrival in Europe and during his earlier residence there
the people on the streets stared at him, and some of the boys threw
stones or stuck out their tongues at him. He did not, however, care
for that, while he expected that the better circles would convince him
of the superiority and the innate tact of the lordly race by their
more refined behavior. But it did not turn out so. He saw the ladies
in the saloons tittering behind their fans and making merry over "the
queer man." And then at the table! How plain was the expression of
astonishment among the gentlemen of the saloons that the brown man
behaved in his eating just as the whites did! They had apparently
anticipated that the "black" would act as if he were tearing live
pigeons to pieces and swallowing them. The indolence of the Europeans
is shown up no less amusingly. Luna finds it apparent in all
conditions, prevailing in the highest and the lowest social strata. He
asks what would become of the industry and activity of the European
peoples if they were suddenly given the climate and the fruitfulness
of his native land. These two examples are all we can give. Likewise
interesting are the studies of my Tagalog friends Don Marcelo H. del
Pilar and Don Mariano Ponce. The former, an advocate from the province
of Bulakan, in the island of Luzon, and a descendant of King
Lakandola, of Manila, was the leader of the Reformist party and the
chief editor of the journal _La Solidaridad_, published in Madrid,
which he directed with a remarkable skill that was recognized by his
opponents. He died in Barcelona in the summer of 1896. His compeer,
Ponce, is now living in Japan and is no less distinguished than Pilar
for his keen wit and his zeal in research.
[Footnote 7: From over the water; or it may be derived from
Ilokos, or Tagal.]
These two Malay jurists carefully examined the criminal records of
Europe. Why? Because, whenever an extraordinary or especially heinous
crime was committed in the Philippine Islands, the Spaniards were
accustomed to use it to confirm their conclusions as to the innate
inferiority of the Malay race. "That could occur only among a people
of inferior intelligence," was their standing phrase. Del Pilar and
Ponce gathered the accounts of trials from the European journals, and
were able to reply to the Spaniards quietly: "No, that is not so. All
these crimes occur among you Europeans, and relatively more frequently
than with us. Your conclusion is therefore false, or else you too have
a defective intelligence such as you ascribe to us." Del Pilar, from
his studies of the colonial enterprises of all peoples, came to the
conclusion that "the Europeans founded most of their colonies at a
time when the holding in vassalage of men of their own race by whites
and the slavery of negroes and Indians were not regarded as offenses.
If, now, we look at colonies in which, as in the Philippine Islands,
agricultural populations are living with a civilization of their own,
the development of the native races will depend on their religion. In
a colony where Islam or a dogmatized heathen religion prevails no
assimilation between Europeans and natives can take place. It is
otherwise in countries like the Philippines, where the natives
accepted Christianity at a time when religion had more importance
among Europeans than now; a common basis was formed for the
co-operation of both parts, the whites and the colored. But the
circumstance that rulers and ruled had the same religion and the same
official language may have led directly to another evil--that the
colors became marks of condition, the whites being the Spartans, the
mestizos the perioikoi, and the colored men the helots or servile
people. So long as no pressure toward higher ambitions occurred from
among those of the perioikoi and the helot grades, and so long as the
whites were able to keep their prestige freely recognized by their
dependents, the view of the whites, that the colored were both
socially and intellectually a lower caste, seemed to be justified. The
case has been different in the present century, especially in the
second half of it. People of our (Philippine) race attended the high
schools, appropriated to themselves the civilization and the knowledge
of the whites, and still the brand of inferiority stuck to them. And
this happened, too, when the quality of the whites had deteriorated.
They were no longer exclusively _señors_, but there came bankrupted
Spaniards or those of the lowest classes into the country, among them
persons who could not read and write, who should be rated as beneath
our school-trained people. And yet these illiterates claimed, by
virtue of their color, to be respected as lords of the land, an
absurdity which left the idea of 'European prestige' without
justification, for how could beggars, spongers, bummers, rowdies, and
illiterates impress anybody? The decent Spaniards committed the
mistake of avowing their solidarity with the sorry fellows of their
caste, instead of rejecting them and holding aloof from them and
sending them back to Spain. So the Spaniards have brought it to pass,
through a mistaken policy, that the Filipinos on their side, too,
throw the good elements of the Spanish population into the same pot
with the foul. Another reason why a Spanish prestige can not be
thought of among us is that, with the exception of the tobacco
companies, all the great enterprises in our country are carried on by
foreigners and Filipinos. We owe all that is called progress not to
the Spaniards, but to our own force or to foreigners."
When the painter Juan Luna attracted so much attention with his
picture Spoliarum it was not known that the artist was a Malay, and
the work was therefore regarded and criticised from a purely artistic
point of view. But as soon as the race of the painter became known,
European prejudice made itself manifest. It was said that the choice
of a tragic subject could unquestionably be traced back to the descent
of the artist from "savages." But when did artists of the white race
ever shrink from such subjects? Luna has had cause enough to complain
of European injustice. The natives are charged with not being
independent in art. "They can only imitate," it is said. But how many
European nations one would have to strike out of the list of the
civilized if that title is to belong only to those which have an art
of their own! It should not be forgotten that the Spaniards have,
during their three hundred years' rule, impressed a Spanish mark on
the native artistic tendencies. The ethnographer who is acquainted
with the woven and carved designs of the heathen tribes which have
remained free from the Spaniards and from Christian civilization will
certainly not be able to deny that the Malays of the Philippine
Islands have a great talent for ornamental art. But if the reproach is
cast against the Filipinos that they have tried to Europeanize
themselves in plastic art as well as in music, they have not done
differently from the Europeans--that is, they denationalize themselves
and come into the great international circle of civilization, a thing
that can hardly be charged as a sin against them. It is very
remarkable, they say, that Europeans condemn in the Filipinos, as a
mark of inferiority that which they regard in themselves as a sign of
progress.
Rizal also has spoken of the injustice of the judgments which
Europeans pass upon Philippine conditions. I have published his views
on this subject in the tenth volume of the _Internationalen Archivs
für Ethnographie_, and will therefore on the present occasion only
give a sketch of them, with a few additional observations to
complement them. Dr. Rizal says that most Europeans judge the natives
from their servants, which would be as false as if anybody should form
his conception of the German people from the complaints which German
housewives are always ready to make concerning their domestics. At one
time while he was visiting me we strolled out of town. He gathered
some wild flowers and asked me their names. I had to confess
respecting many of them that I knew neither their common nor their
botanical names. He laughed and said: "Well, you are a cit; let us ask
a countryman." We met a peasant, but he could not give us any
information about any of the flowers. "Why," Rizal said, "is this the
first time you ever saw the flowers?" The peasant replied that he knew
the flowers very well, but did not know what they were called. When
the countryman had gone, Rizal said to me: "How fortunate you
Europeans are as compared with us poor Tagals! If such an experience
as I have just gone through should happen to a European among us he
would write in his notebook that 'the stupidity of these people shows
itself in the fact that they do not know or have no names for many of
the flowers which they see every day and tread upon with their clumsy
feet. What can not be eaten or put to some immediate use has very
little value or interest to these fellows, and such dull-witted folk
as these want reform and autonomy!' And he would be only a modest
traveler. Another one would write a whole chapter over the incident,
as illustrating the inferiority of all our people."
I might continue at greater length on this theme, but I believe that
the reader will sufficiently apprehend from what I have said that the
European and American whites have not made a good impression on the
colored Filipinos, and that the Philippine creoles feel as one with
their colored brethren; that there is no spirit of caste in the matter
like that which existed in the old colonial times, but they all call
themselves simply Filipinos, and that the rule of the American
Anglo-Saxons, who regard even the creoles as a kind of "niggers,"
would be looked upon by educated Filipinos of all castes as a supreme
loss of civic rights.--_Translated for the Popular Science Monthly
from the Deutsche Rundschau._
DO ANIMALS REASON?
BY EDWARD THORNDIKE, PH. D.
Probably every reader who owns a dog or cat has already answered the
question which forms our title, and the chance is ten to one that he
has answered, "Yes." In spite of the declarations of the psychologists
from Descartes to Lloyd Morgan, the man who likes his dog and the
woman who pets a cat persist in the belief that their pets carry on
thinking processes similar, at least in kind, to our own. And if one
has nothing more to say for the opposite view than the stock arguments
of the psychologists, he will make few converts. A series of
experiments carried on for two years have, I hope, given me some
things more to say--some things which may interest the believer in
reason in animals, even if they do not convert him.
In trying to find out what sort of thinking animals were capable of I
adopted a novel but very simple method. Dogs and cats were shut up,
when hungry, in inclosures from which they could escape by performing
some simple act, such as pulling a wire loop, stepping on a platform
or lever, clawing down a string stretched across the inclosure,
turning a wooden button, etc. In each case the act set in play some
simple mechanism which opened the door. A piece of fish or meat
outside the inclosure furnished the motive for their attempts to
escape. The inclosures for the cats were wooden boxes, in shape and
appearance like the one pictured in Fig. 1, and were about 20 × 15 ×
12 inches in size. The boxes for the dogs (who were rather small,
weighing on the average about thirty pounds) were about 40 × 22 × 22.
By means of such experiments we put animals in situations seeming
almost sure to call forth any reasoning powers they possess. On the
days when the experiments were taking place they were practically
utterly hungry, and so had the best reasons for making every effort to
escape. As a fact, their conduct when shut up in these boxes showed
the utmost eagerness to get out and get at the much-needed food.
Moreover, the actions required and the thinking involved are such as
the stories told about intelligent animals credit them with, and, on
the other hand, are not far removed from the acts and feelings
required in the ordinary course of animal life. It would be foolish to
deny reason to an animal because he failed to do something (e. g., a
mathematical computation) which in the nature of his life he would
never be likely to think about, or which his bones and muscles were
not fitted to perform, or which, even by those who credit him with
reason, he is never supposed to do. So the experiments were arranged
with a view of giving reasoning every chance to display itself if it
existed.
[Illustration: FIG. 1.]
What, now, would we expect to observe if a _reasoning_ animal, who is
surely eager to get out, is put, for example, into a box with a door
arranged so as to fall open when a wooden button holding it at the top
(on the inside) is turned from its vertical to a horizontal position?
We should expect that he would first try to claw the whole box apart
or to crawl out between the bars. He would soon realize the futility
of this and stop to consider. He might then think of the button as
being the vital point, or of having seen doors open when buttons were
turned. He might then poke or claw it around. If after he had eaten
the bit of fish outside he was immediately put in the box again he
ought to remember what he had done before, and at once attack the
button, and so ever after. It might very well be that he would not,
when in the box for the first time, be able to reason out the way to
escape. But suppose that, in clawing, biting, trying to crawl through
holes, etc., he happened to turn the button and so escape. He ought,
then, if at once put in again, this time to perform deliberately the
act which he had in the first trial hit upon accidentally. This one
would expect to see if the animal _did_ reason. What do we really see?
To save time we may confine ourselves to a description of the twelve
cats experimented with, adding now that the dogs presented no
difference in behavior which would modify our conclusions. The
behavior of all but No. 11 and No. 13 was practically the same. When
put into the box the cat would show evident signs of discomfort and of
an impulse to escape from confinement. It tries to squeeze through any
opening; it claws and bites at the bars; it thrusts its paws out
through any opening, and claws at everything it reaches; it continues
its efforts when it strikes anything loose and shaky; it may claw at
things in the box. The vigor with which it struggles is extraordinary.
For eight or ten minutes it will claw and bite and squeeze
incessantly. With No. 13, an old cat, and No. 11, an uncommonly
sluggish cat, the behavior was different. They did not struggle
vigorously or continually. (In the experiments it was found that these
two would stay quietly in the box for hours, and I therefore let them
out myself a few times, so that they might associate the fact of being
outside with the fact of eating, and so desire to escape. When this
was done, they tried to get out like the rest.) In all cases the
instinctive struggle is likely to succeed in leading the cat
accidentally to turn the button and so escape, for the cat claws and
bites all over the box. These general clawings, bitings, and
squeezings are of course instinctive, not premeditated. The cats will
do the same if in a box with absolutely no chance for escape, or in a
basket without even an opening--will do them, that is, when they are
the foolishest things to do. The cats do these acts for just the same
reason that they suck when young, propagate when older, or eat meat
when they smell it.
Each of the twelve cats was tried in a number of different boxes, and
in no case did I see anything that even looked like thoughtful
contemplation of the situation or deliberation over possible ways of
winning freedom. Furthermore, in every case any cat who had thus
accidentally hit upon the proper act was, after he had eaten the bit
of fish outside, immediately put back into the box. Did he then think
of how he had got out before, and at once or after a time of thinking
repeat the act? By no means. He bursts out into the same instinctive
activities as before, and may even fail this time to get out at all,
or until a much _longer_ period of miscellaneous scrabbling at last
happens to include the particular clawing or poking which works the
mechanism. If one repeats the process, keeps putting the cat back into
the box after each success, the amount of the useless action gradually
decreases, the right movement is made sooner and sooner, until finally
it is done as soon as the cat is put in.
This sort of a history is not the history of a reasoning animal. It is
the history of an animal who meets a certain situation with a lot of
instinctive acts. Included without design among these acts is one
which brings freedom and food. The pleasurable result of this one
gradually stamps it in in connection with the situation "confinement
in that box," while their failure to result in any pleasure gradually
stamps out all the useless bitings, clawings, and squeezings. Thus,
little by little, the one act becomes more and more likely to be done
in that situation, while the others slowly vanish. This history
represents the wearing smooth of a path in the brain, not the
decisions of a rational consciousness.
[Illustration: FIG. 2.]
[Illustration: FIG. 3.]
We can express graphically the difference between the conduct of a
reasoning animal and that of these dogs and cats by means of a
time-curve. If, for instance, we let perpendiculars to a horizontal
line represent each one trial in the box, and let their heights
represent in each trial the time it took the animal to escape (each
three millimetres equaling ten seconds), the accompanying figure (Fig.
2) will tell the story of a cat which, when first put in, took sixty
seconds to get out; in the second trial, eighty; in the third, fifty;
in the fourth, sixty; in the fifth, fifty; in the sixth, forty, etc.
This figure represents what did actually happen with one cat in
learning a very easy act. Suppose the cat had, after the third
accidental success, been able to reason. She would then have the next
time and in all succeeding times performed the act as soon as put in,
and the figure would have been such as we see in Fig. 3. The thing is
still clearer if, instead of drawing in the perpendiculars, we draw
only a line joining their tops. Fig. 4 shows, then, the curve for the
real history, and Fig. 5 shows the abrupt descent, due to a rational
comprehension of the situation. I kept an accurate record of the time,
in seconds, taken in every trial by every cat in every box, and in
them all there appears no evidence for the presence of even the little
reasoning that "what let me out of this box three seconds ago will let
me out now." Surely, if an animal could reason he would, after ten or
eleven accidental successes, think what he had been doing, and at the
eleventh or twelfth trial would at once perform the act. But no! The
slope of the curves, as one may see in the specimens shown in Fig. 6,
is always gradual. So, in saying that the behavior of the animals
throughout the experiments gave no sign of the presence of reasoning I
am not giving a personal opinion, but the impartial evidence of an
unprejudiced watch. The curves given in Fig. 6 are for cats learning
to escape from the box already described, whose door was held by a
wooden button on the inside.
[Illustration: FIG. 4.]
[Illustration: FIG. 5.]
[Illustration: FIG. 6.]
Some one may object that, true as all this may be, the intelligent
acts reported of animals are in many cases such as could not have
happened in this way by accident. These anecdotes of apparent
comprehension and inference are really the only argument which the
believers in reason have presented. Its whole substance vanishes if,
as a matter of fact, animals can do these supposed intelligent acts in
the course of instinctive struggling. They certainly can and do. I
purposely chose, for experiments, two of the most intelligent
performances described by Romanes in his Animal Intelligence--namely,
the act of opening a door by depressing the thumb-piece of an ordinary
thumb-latch and the opening of a window by turning a swivel (see pp.
420-422 and p. 425 of Animal Intelligence, by G. J. Romanes). Here I
may quote from the detailed report of my experiments (Monograph
Supplement to the Psychological Review, No. 8):
"G was a box 29 × 20-1/2 × 22-1/2, with a door 29 × 12 hinged on the
left side of the box (looking from within), and kept closed by an
ordinary thumb-latch placed fifteen inches from the floor. The
remainder of the front of the box was closed in by wooden bars. The
door was a wooden frame covered with screening. It was _not_ arranged
so as to open as soon as the latch was lifted, but required a force of
four hundred grammes, even when applied to the best advantage. The bar
of the thumb-latch, moreover, would fall back into place again unless
the door were pushed out at least a little. Eight cats (Nos. 1, 2, 3,
4, 5, 6, 7, and 13) were, one at a time, left in this thumb-latch box.
All exhibited the customary instinctive clawings and squeezings and
bitings. Out of the eight, _all succeeded, in the course of their
vigorous struggles, in pressing down the thumb-piece_, so that if the
door had been free to swing open they could have escaped. Six
succeeded in pushing both thumb-piece down and door out, so that the
bar did not fall back into its place. Of these, _five succeeded in
also later pushing the door open, so that they escaped and got the
fish outside_. Of these, three, after about fifty trials, associated
the complicated movements required with the sight of the interior of
the box so firmly that they attacked the thumb-latch the moment they
were put in."
In the cases of No. 1 and No. 6 the combination of accidents required
was enough to make their successes somewhat rare. Consequently
weariness and failure offset the occasional pleasure of getting food,
and after succeeding four and ten times respectively they never again
succeeded, though given numerous opportunities. Their cases are almost
a perfect proof of the claim that accident, not inference, makes
animals open doors. For they hit upon the thing several times, but did
not know enough to profit even by these experiences, and so failed to
open the door the fifth and eleventh times.
Accident is equally capable of helping a cat escape from an inclosure
whose door is held by a swivel.
"Out of six cats who were put in the box whose door opened by a
button, _not one failed_, in the course of its impulsive activity, to
push the button around. Sometimes it was clawed one side from below;
sometimes vigorous pressure on the top turned it around; sometimes it
was pushed up by the nose. No cat who was given repeated trials failed
to form a perfect association between the sight of the interior of
that box and the proper movements."
If, then, three cats out of eight can escape from a small box by
accidentally operating a thumb-latch, one cat in a hundred may easily
escape from a room by accident. If one hundred per cent of all cats
are sure to sooner or later turn a button around when in a small box,
one cat in a thousand may well escape from a room by accidentally
turning a swivel around.
So far we have seen that when put in situations calculated to call
forth any thinking powers which they possess, the animal's conduct
still shows no signs of anything beyond the accidental formation of an
association between the sight of the interior of the box and the
impulse to a certain act, and the subsequent complete establishment of
this association because of the power of pleasure to stamp in any
process which leads to it. We have also seen that samples of the acts
which have been supposed by advocates of the reason theory to require
reasoning for their accomplishment turn out to be readily accomplished
by the accidental success of instinctive impulses. The decision that
animals do not possess the higher mental processes is re-enforced by
several other lines of experiment--for example, by some experiments on
imitation.
The details of these experiments I will not take the time to describe.
Suffice it to say that cats and dogs were given a chance to see one of
their fellows free himself from confinement and gain food by
performing some simple act. In each case they were where they could
see him do this from fifty to one hundred and fifty times, and did
actually watch his actions closely from ten to forty times. After
every ten chances to learn from seeing him, they were put into the
same inclosure and observed carefully, in order to see whether they
would, from having so often seen the act done, know enough to do it
themselves, or at least to try to do it. In this they signally failed.
Those who had failed previously to hit upon the thing accidentally
never learned it later from seeing it done. Those who were given a
chance to imitate acts which accident would sooner or later have
taught them learned the acts no more quickly than if they had never
seen the other animal do it the score or more of times. The animals,
that is, could not master the simple inference that if, in a certain
situation, that fellow-cat of mine performs a certain act and gets
fish, I, in the same situation, may get fish by performing that act.
They did not think enough to profit by the observation of their
fellows, no matter how many chances for such observation were given
them.
Equally corroborative of our first position are the results of still
another set of experiments. Here the dogs and cats were put through
the proper movement from twenty-five to one hundred times, being left
in the box after every five or ten trials and watched to see if they
would not be able at least to realize that the act which they had just
been made to do and which had resulted in liberation and food was the
proper act to be done. For instance, a dog would be put in a box the
door of which would fall open when a loop of string hanging outside
the box was clawed down an inch or so. Animals were taken who had,
when left to themselves, failed to be led to this particular act by
their general instinctive activities. After two minutes I would put in
my arm, take the dog's paw, hold it out between the bars, and,
inserting it in the loop, pull the loop down. The dog would of course
then go out and eat the bit of meat. After repeating this ten times
(in some cases five) I would put the dog in and leave him to his own
devices. If, as was always the case, he failed in ten or twenty
minutes to profit by my teaching I would take him out, but would not
feed him. After a half hour or so I would recommence my attempts to
show the dog what needed to be done. This would be kept up for two or
three days, until he had shown his utter inability to get the notion
of doing for himself what he had been made to do a hundred or more
times. The mental process required here need not be so high a one as
inference or reasoning, but surely any animal possessing those would,
after seeing and feeling his paw pull a loop down a hundred times with
such good results, have known enough to do it himself. None of my
animals did know enough. Those who did not in ten or twelve trials hit
upon an act by accident could never be taught that act by being put
through it. And, as in the case of imitation, acts of such a sort as
would be surely learned by virtue of accidental success were not
learned a whit sooner or more easily when I thus showed them to the
animal.
An interesting supplement to these facts is found in the following
answers to some questions which I sent to the trainer of one of the
most remarkable trick-performing horses now exhibited on the stage.
The counting tricks done by this horse had been quoted to me by a
friend as impossible of explanation unless the horse could be educated
by being put through the right number of movements in connection with
the different signals.
_Question 1._--If you wished to teach a horse to tap seven times with
his hoof when you asked him "How many days are there in a week?" would
you teach him by taking his leg and making him go through the motions?
_Answer._--"No!"
_Question 2._--Do you think you _could_ teach him that way, even if
naturally you would take some other way?
_Answer._--"I do not think I could."
_Question 3._--How would you teach him?
_Answer._--"You put figure 2 on the blackboard and _touch him, on the
leg_ twice with a cane, and so on."
The counting tricks of trained horses seem to us marvelous because we
are not acquainted with the simple but important fact that a horse
instinctively raises his hoof when one pricks or taps his leg in a
certain place. Just as once given, the cat's instinct to claw,
squeeze, etc., you can readily get a cat to open doors by working
latches or turning buttons, so, once given this simple reflex of
raising the hoof, you can, by ingenuity and patience, get a horse to
do almost any number of counting tricks.
Probably any one who still feels confident that animals reason will
not be shaken by any further evidence. Still, it will pay any one who
cares to make scientific his notions about animal consciousness to
notice the results of two sets of experiments not yet mentioned. The
first set was concerned with the way animals learn to perform a
compound act. Boxes were arranged so that two or three different
things had to be done before the door would fall open. For instance,
in one case the cat or dog had to step on a platform, reach up between
the bars over the top of the box and claw down a string running across
them, and finally push its paw out beside the door to claw down a bar
which held it.
The animal's instinctive impulses do often lead it to accidentally
perform these several acts one after another, and repeated accidental
successes do in some of these cases cause the acts to be done at last
in fairly quick succession. But we see clearly that the acts are not
thought about or done with anything like a rational comprehension of
the situation, for the time taken to learn the thing is much longer
than all three elements would take if tackled separately; and even
after the animal has reached a minimum time in doing the acts, he does
not do the things in the same order, and often repeats one of the acts
over and over again, though it has already attained its end.
The second set comprised experiments on the so-called "memory" of
animals. I will describe only one out of many which agree with it. A
kitten had been trained to the habit of climbing the wire-netting
front of its cage whenever I approached. I then trained her to climb
up at the words "I must feed those cats." This was done by uttering
them and then in ten seconds going up to the cage and holding a bit of
fish to her at its top. After this had been done about forty times she
reached a point where she would climb up at the signal about fifty per
cent of the times. I then introduced a new element by sometimes
saying, "I must feed those cats," as before, and feeding her, and at
other times saying, "I will not feed them," and remaining still in my
chair. At first the kitten felt no difference, and would climb up just
as often at the wrong signal as at the right. But gradually (it took
about four hundred and fifty trials) the failure to get any pleasure
from the act of climbing up at the wrong signal stamped out the
impulse to do so, while the pleasure sequent upon the act of climbing
up at the other signal made that her invariable response to it. Here,
as elsewhere, the absence of reason was shown by the cat's failure at
any point in these hundreds of trials to think about the matter, and
make the easy inference that one set of sounds meant food, while the
other did not. But still better proof appears in what is to follow.
After an interval of eighty days I tried her again to see how
permanent the association between the signal and act was. It was
permanent to the extent that what took three hundred and eighty trials
before took only fifty this time, for after fifty trials with the "I
will not feed them" signal, mixed up with a lot of the other, the cat
once more attained perfect discrimination. But it was not permanent in
the sense that the cat at the first or tenth or twentieth trial felt,
as a remembering, reasoning consciousness surely ought to feel, "Why,
that lot of sounds means that he won't come up with fish." For instead
of at first forgetting and for a while climbing up at the _I will not
feed them_, and then remembering its previous experience and at once
stopping the performance it had before learned was useless, the cat
simply went through the same gradual decreasing of the percentage of
wrong responses until finally it always responded rightly.
What has so far been said is true regardless of any prejudice or
incompetence on my part, for the proof in all cases rests not on my
observation, but on impartial time records or such matters of fact as
the escape or nonescape, the climbing or not-climbing of the animals.
I may add that in a life among these animals of six months for from
four to eight hours a day I never saw any acts which even _seemed_ to
show reasoning powers, and did see numerous acts unmentioned here
which pointed clearly to their absence.
All that is left for the fond owner of a supposedly rational animal to
say is that though the average animal, the typical dog or cat, is by
these experiments shown to be devoid of reasoning power, yet _his_ dog
or _her_ cat is far above the average level, and is therefore to be
judged by itself. He may claim that just because my average animals
failed to infer, we have no right to deny inference to all,
particularly to his. Is it not fair to ask such a one to repeat my
experiments with his supposedly superior animal? Until he does and
systematically tries to find out how its mind works and what it is
capable of, has he any right to bear witness? It may also be said that
of the number of people who witnessed the performances of my animals
after they had fully learned a lot of these acts, but had not seen the
method of acquisition, all unanimously wondered at their wonderful
intellectual powers. "How _do_ you teach them?" "Where did you get
such bright animals?" "I always thought animals could think," and such
like were common expressions of my visitors. The fact was that the
dogs and cats were picked up in the street at random, and that no one
of them had thought out one jot or tittle of the things he had learned
to do. The specious appearance of reasoning in a completely formed
habit does not involve the presence or assistance of reasoning in the
formation of the habit.
Here, at the close of this account, I may signify my willingness to
reply, so far as is possible, to any letters from readers of the
Popular Science Monthly who may care to ask questions about any
feature of animal intelligence.
* * * * *
In a discussion of the question "How Education fails," Dr. J. T.
Searcy, of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, speaks of the tendency of too
much education as being to make the pupil too machine-cut. "The
successful, the progressive, the aggressive men, families, and
races are not the manufactured ones, but the self-made ones." In
the conditions and complexities of human society, the
accumulating data of knowledge change so rapidly that educators
can not anticipate the future in the elements and curricula of
prescribed education. The advancing man, who is able to keep up
in his day and generation, shows his excellence in his ability to
readjust to his changing environment. The schools can not give
this faculty, but rather have a tendency to weaken it; yet on it,
more than anything else, rests the success of the man and the
race. "Too much ought not to be demanded of the schools, nor
ought they to assume too much to themselves."
THE UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM.
BY HON. CHARLES D. WALCOTT,
DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES GEOLOGICAL SURVEY.
A national museum should be the center of scientific activity in the
country in which it is located. In England the British Museum is the
Mecca of scientific men. In Paris, Copenhagen, Vienna, Berlin, and
other capitals of Europe the national museum stands in similar
relations to the scientific work of its own country. Such a relation
our National Museum should hold to scientific men and affairs in
America. It should receive and take care of all material that has been
or may be valuable for investigation or for the illustration of the
ethnology, natural history, geology, products, and resources of our
own country, or for comparison with the material of other countries.
It should furnish material for all kinds of scientific investigations
which deal with specimens or types, and give aid to such researches
and publish their results. It should present by illustration such of
the results of the scientific investigations of its corps of officers
as are susceptible of such representation. It should co-operate with
all the higher educational institutions of learning in the country,
and assist in the promotion and diffusion of knowledge in all lines of
investigation carried on by it. It should provide library facilities,
and aid all post-graduate students who may wish to take advantage of
the provisions made by the Government for scientific research.
HISTORY AND PRESENT ORGANIZATION.--Beginning in a small way in the
Patent-Office building early in the century, the "Government"
collections of "natural products" were transferred to the custody of
the Smithsonian Institution in 1858, where they were installed along
with the larger and more valuable collections of the institution.
Twenty-three years later, in 1881, the present National Museum
building was ready for the great mass of material that had accumulated
in the Smithsonian building, and had been transferred from the
Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia. Out of these heterogeneous
collections Dr. G. Brown Goode, under the direction of Secretary
Baird, of the Smithsonian, organized a museum of broad scope, based on
all that had proved best in museum experience to that time. Faithfully
he carried forward the work until September, 1896, when his health
broke under the strain of too many duties, and one of the best museum
administrators the world has yet produced, if not the very best one,
passed from us. In January, 1897, I was placed in temporary charge of
the administration of the museum as an acting Assistant Secretary of
the Smithsonian Institution, and remained in charge until July 1,
1898.
On July 1, 1897, in order to meet changed conditions, a new plan of
organization went into effect. The various divisions and sections of
anthropology, biology, and geology, which had previously been
conducted independently of one another, the curators and custodians
reporting directly to the assistant secretary in charge of the museum,
were united under three head curators--one of anthropology, another of
biology, and a third of geology. This secured direct expert
supervision, and correlated the work of each department. Before this
such correlation had been impossible, owing to the large number of
independent heads of sections and divisions in each department, who
planned and executed the work more or less independently of one
another.
In the department of anthropology the system of installation
inaugurated by Prof. W. H. Holmes is somewhat elaborate. The primary
arrangement is founded, first, on the geographical or ethnographical
assemblage, and, second, on the developmental or genetic assemblage.
Other methods may be classed as special; they are the chronologic, the
comparative, the individual, etc. The primary methods are adapted to
the presentation of the general truths of anthropology, and the
special methods are available for limited portions of the field.
In many ways the department of biology, under the charge of Dr. F. W.
True, was, at the date named, in much better condition than either of
the other two departments. Many of the zoölogical divisions had been
in existence since the reorganization of the museum in 1883, and
several of them for a much longer period, and as the biological
specimens had been in charge of curators and assistants who followed
well-defined and long-established methods, the reorganization of the
department was a relatively simple matter, no radical changes in the
scientific methods or in the business administration being required.
To the organization and administration of the department of geology,
Dr. George P. Merrill brought the results of a recent study of various
European museums. He found it necessary to make a systematic
examination of the written and printed records of the various
Government exploring expeditions and surveys, with a view to
ascertaining what geological material had been collected which could
properly be considered the property of the Government, and what
disposition had been made of the same. The law[8] provides that
collections made for the Government shall, when no longer needed for
investigations in progress, be deposited in the National Museum. It
was found that this law had not in all cases been strictly enforced,
and that several important collections had not been transferred to the
museum, although some of the earlier exploring expeditions had passed
out of existence, and in several instances the individuals making the
collections had likewise passed away. This investigation has resulted
in the transfer to the museum of several car loads of specimens no
longer needed elsewhere.
[Footnote 8: "And all collections of rocks, minerals, soils,
fossils, and objects of natural history, archæology, and
ethnology, made by the Coast and Interior Survey, the Geological
Survey, or by any other parties for the Government of the United
States, when no longer needed for investigations in progress,
shall be deposited in the National Museum...."--_Supplement to
the Revised Statutes of the United States_, vol. i, second
edition, 1874-1891, p. 252.]
The National Museum is unique among permanent museums in having large
sections of its collections almost constantly away from it. It made
displays at London in 1883, at Louisville in 1884, at Minneapolis in
1887, at Cincinnati and Marietta in 1888, at Madrid in 1892, at
Chicago in 1893, at Atlanta in 1895, at Nashville in 1896, and at
Omaha in 1898. The injury to the museum resulting from the packing and
transportation of specimens and from the interruption of systematic
work and development has been keenly felt at times by the scientific
staff. The advantages have consisted in showing to the people of many
sections of the country what the museum is doing, in securing
collections that otherwise would not have been obtained, and in
extending the educational sphere of influence.
RELATIONS TO THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.--The museum is a child that
has by its vigorous growth already overshadowed the parent institution
in the extent of its buildings, its expenditures, and its direct
influence upon the people of the United States. In the larger fields
for which the Smithsonian Institution was organized, for the purpose
of increasing and diffusing knowledge among men throughout the world,
the museum is subordinate to the institution, and if the latter is
administered in the future as it has been in the past, it will
continue to hold a unique place among all institutions for the
increase and diffusion of knowledge.
In 1877 Prof. Asa Gray, as chairman of a special committee of the
Regents of the Smithsonian, submitted a report which recommended that
a distinction between the institution itself and the museum under its
charge should be made as prominent as possible. The fear was expressed
that if the museum was developed to its full extent and importance
within the Smithsonian Institution it would absorb the working
energies of the institution, and it was thought that such a
differentiation would pave the way to entire separation of
administration or to some other adjustment, as the Board of Regents
might think best or be able to accomplish. Professor Baird, in 1878,
in his report to the regents, called attention to the frequent mention
in the reports of his predecessor of the relations existing between
the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum, and remarked that
"it is only necessary to mention briefly that the museum constitutes
no organic part of the institution, and that, whenever Congress so
directs, it may be transferred to any designated supervision without
affecting the general plans and operations connected with the
'increase and diffusion of knowledge among men.'"
During the administration of the museum by Dr. Goode, under the
direction of Professor Baird, and later Professor Langley, no movement
was made toward the separation of the museum from the Smithsonian. On
the contrary, Dr. Goode was strongly opposed to any such action, and
in this he was heartily supported by Secretary Langley. He felt that
the result of placing the museum under the control of one of the great
departments of the Government, or leaving it to be buffeted about in
the sea of politics as an independent organization, would be the
destruction of its scientific character.
I have been intimately acquainted with the administration of the
museum since 1886, and less so with the administration of other
scientific bureaus of the Government, one of which, the Fish
Commission, is independent of departmental control. After a careful
reconsideration of the subject of the relations of the National Museum
to the Smithsonian Institution, I have come to the conclusion that the
present welfare and the future development of the museum will be best
served by administrative connection with the Smithsonian Institution.
Under the present organization there is no necessity for large demand
upon the time and energies of the secretary by the affairs of the
museum. If in the future it should become otherwise, relief could
readily be secured by action of the Board of Regents, requiring the
officer in charge of the museum to report to them through the
secretary, much as the various bureaus of the departments report
through their respective secretaries to Congress. It is not probable,
however, that this will become necessary, for at any time an assistant
secretary could be appointed to take sole charge of the museum, thus
relieving the secretary of all but the most general administrative
supervision.
RELATIONS TO A NATIONAL UNIVERSITY.--A national museum should radiate
an educational influence to the remotest portions of the country. It
should set the standard for all other museums, whether in public
school, academy, college, university, or the larger museums under
municipal and State control. Its influence should be exercised largely
through its publications and through those who come to study its
collections and the methods of work of the investigators connected
directly or indirectly with its scientific staff. In its library
system the student should have access to the literature bearing upon
the subjects with which the museum is concerned. In its exhibition
halls each object should be labeled and arranged with the view of
presenting, by graphic illustration and concise description, all that
it is capable of teaching, either as a discrete object or as one of a
series of objects telling the story of the evolution of the group to
which it belongs. Such a museum is not a place where the uninformed
student may obtain the elements of a university training; it is an
institution where the post-graduate student can secure access to
material for study and research in connection with men who are
carrying forward scientific work of the highest type. Dr. D. C. Gilman
would go further than this. He says:[9]
[Footnote 9: Century Magazine, vol. lv, 1897, p. 156.]
"Any person of either sex, from any place, of whatever age, without
any question as to his previous academic degree, should be admissible;
provided, however, that he demonstrate his fitness to the satisfaction
of the leader in the subject of his predilection."
Dr. Gilman thinks that such an organization "may be developed more
readily around the Smithsonian Institution, with less friction, less
expense, less peril, and with the prospect of more permanent and
widespread advantages to the country, than by a dozen denominational
seminaries or one colossal university of the United States.
"To the special opportunities that the Smithsonian and its
affiliations could offer, every university, at a distance or near by,
might be glad to send its most promising students for a residence of
weeks, months, or years, never losing control of them. Many other
persons, disconnected with universities, but proficient to a
considerable degree in one study or another, would also resort with
pleasure and gratitude, and with prospect of great advantages, to the
rare opportunities which Washington affords for study and
investigation in history, political science, literature, ethnology,
anthropology, medicine, agriculture, meteorology, geology, geodesy,
and astronomy."
I fully agree with him, but would make the National Museum the center
of activity, rather than the Smithsonian Institution. It would then be
under the control of the Board of Regents, through the secretary or
the assistant secretary, who could have direct charge. It seems to me
that the function of the Smithsonian Institution is to aid at the
beginning of such a movement, and then place the administration in
charge of one of its bureaus or transfer it to some other suitable
organization.
With the National Museum as a center or base, the student in
Washington may avail himself of the Library of Congress and of the
facilities offered for study and investigation by the various
scientific bureaus of the Government, such as the Fish Commission, the
Zoölogical Park, the Geological and Coast and Geodetic Surveys, the
Naval Observatory, and the Weather, Botanical, Biological, and
Entomological Bureaus of the Department of Agriculture, and systematic
courses of lectures will place before him the most advanced ideas and
conclusions of the largest body of scientific investigators in the
world.
A single well-trained man, with a few assistants, could render
invaluable aid to hundreds of post-graduate and special students,
whose only need is direction as to the best means of pursuing studies
and investigations. Such an organization could be located in the
administrative building that it has been proposed to erect as a
nucleus of the National University. From this beginning a national
university of the broadest type could be developed with as much
rapidity as the educational interests of the country might demand.
The National Museum can not at present give facilities to more than a
score of students, but with the erection of a modern museum building,
well equipped with laboratory space and a suitable staff to conduct
the necessary work of installation and investigation, the scientific
side of the National University would be established. It should be
remembered that many of the officers of the scientific bureaus of the
Government are directly connected with the museum staff as honorary
curators and custodians, and that a number of them have laboratories
within the museum building.
NEED OF A NEW BUILDING.--The growth of the United States National
Museum was rapid under the successful administration of Dr. Goode.
When the character of the building and the funds available for the
maintenance of the museum are considered, it compares favorably with
any modern museum. It has received large collections from the
scientific departments of the Government, by private contribution, by
purchase, and by exchange, which have been accommodated as well as
possible in the inadequate laboratories, storerooms, and exhibition
spaces. During the fiscal year 1897-'98, accessions to the number of
1,441 were received, containing upward of 450,000 specimens--the
largest number for any one year since the museum was opened. The total
number of specimens recorded to July 1, 1898, exceeds four million.
The galleries just completed have added sixteen thousand square feet
of floor space, which is available for the spreading out and proper
exhibition of material that has previously been crowded in the
exhibition halls and courts on the floor; but, as an illustration of
the present congested conditions, it may be stated that the
anthropological collections now in the possession of the Government,
illustrating the development and progress of man and his works, if
properly placed on exhibition, would occupy the entire space in the
present museum building. The great collections in biology, botany,
economic geology, general geology, and paleontology should be placed
in a building properly constructed for their study and exhibition. A
considerable portion of the collections are still in the Smithsonian
building, where the crowding is scarcely less than in the museum
building.
Moreover, in the present building there is great deficiency in
laboratory facilities. Curators and assistants are hampered for want
of room in which to lay out, arrange, classify, mount, and label
specimens. There should also be rooms in which students could bring
together and compare various series of objects, and have at hand books
and scientific apparatus. The present museum building contains a few
rooms suitable for the purposes mentioned, but the majority have to be
used as storerooms, laboratories, and offices, and are therefore too
much crowded to serve in any one of these capacities. Owing to the
pressure for space, courts, halls, and galleries intended for
exhibition purposes, both in the Smithsonian building and in the
museum building, are unavoidably occupied to a considerable extent as
laboratories and storerooms. There is also need of storage room, an
increase of the scientific staff, and a purchasing and collecting
fund. The American Museum of Natural History expends annually $60,000
for the increase of its collections; the National Museum has from
$3,000 to $4,000 for the purpose.
The immediate and greatest need, however, is a suitable museum
building. The present building is 375 feet square. The space on the
ground floor is 140,625 square feet, and that in the galleries 16,000
square feet; exhibition space, 96,000 square feet. The entire cost is
$315,400.
For comparison with the above figures, the following statistics
relating to the American Museum of Natural History in New York are
given: Total floor space, 294,000 square feet, divided as follows:
Exhibition space, 196,000 square feet; laboratories, library, etc.,
42,500 square feet; workrooms, storage, etc., 42,000 square feet;
lecture hall, 13,500 square feet. These figures include the portions
of the building now being completed. The total cost of the museum to
date, including the completion of the new wings, is $3,559,470.15. The
buildings, and the care of them, are provided for by the city of New
York. The expenses of the scientific staff, increase of collections,
etc. (the income for which for the present year is approximately
$185,000), are defrayed from endowments, membership fees, and
contributions. In the capitals of Europe, museum buildings are
generously provided for.
The National Museum building was erected with the view of covering the
largest amount of space with the least outlay of money. In this
respect it may be considered a success. It is, in fact, scarcely more
than the shadow of such a massive, dignified, and well-finished
building as should be the home of the great national collections.
There is needed at once a spacious, absolutely fireproof building of
several stories, constructed of durable materials, well lighted,
modern in equipment, and on such a plan that it can be added to as
occasion arises in the future. The site for such a building is already
owned by the Government; only the building needs to be provided for.
What the Capitol building is to the nation, the library building to
the National Library, the Smithsonian building to the Smithsonian
Institution, the new museum building should be to the National Museum.
There should be available:
Sq. ft.
Department of biology 190,000
Department of geology 83,000
Special laboratories for students 5,000
Rough storage, workshops, etc. 20,000
Lecture hall 6,000
-------
Total 304,000
Present museum space to be devoted
to the department of anthropology 96,000
-------
Grand total 400,000
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT.--With suitable buildings provided, the immediate
development of the National Museum naturally lies in four directions:
(1) The occupation of the present building by the anthropological
collections; (2) the housing, developing, and installing of the large
biological collections; (3) the development of a great museum of
practical geology; and (4) the development of the scientific side of a
National University.
1. The collections in anthropology, as they stand to-day, cover a wide
field in a broken and disconnected way. It is difficult to use them
effectively to illustrate the great features of this branch of
science. They do not present a connected story of the peoples and
cultures of the world. This arises from the gaps in the collections
and the absence of suitable laboratory and exhibition space. This
department should have adequate representations of the American
peoples and their culture, not only of our own country, but of the
whole American continent. Our nation is the only one in America that
can reasonably be expected to do anything of importance toward the
preservation of the materials necessary for the illustration of this
vast field; and as the American race is a unit, of which the tribes in
our own territory constitute a considerable part, it appears to be our
duty to take up this work in a comprehensive way. Thus would be built
up not only a National Museum, but an American Museum in the widest
sense. This applies not only to anthropology, but to the other great
departments of the museum. It will be impossible to carry on such a
work without turning over to the Department of Anthropology the entire
present building, with all its laboratory and exhibition space.
2. The Department of Biology now occupies a large exhibition space in
the Smithsonian building and 55,000 square feet in the museum
building. Large collections are stored in laboratories and inclosed
spaces in the exhibition halls which would be placed on exhibition if
space were available. As has already been explained, in a new building
there should be available for the Department of Biology 190,000 square
feet of exhibition, laboratory, and storage space.
The present exhibit is more complete than that of the other
departments of the museum. Of birds there is a large mounted series,
one of the finest in existence, but it is so indifferently housed that
it fails to make the impression it should. Of mammals there is a good
North American series, and there are some excellent examples of exotic
species. There is a good and rather large exhibit of the various
groups of the lower forms of animals, including an especially fine
series of corals and sponges. These are the only series at present
exhibited which can be considered at all comprehensive. Of the great
groups of fishes, reptiles, and amphibians there is room only for an
outline representation. The wonderful variety of form among insects
can be scarcely more than suggested in the space available. Of plants
there has hitherto been no exhibit worthy of the name, and the space
which it has now been possible to set aside is entirely out of
proportion to the vast extent and importance of this great kingdom of
Nature.
Every natural-history museum of the first class should have at least
two comprehensive exhibition series. The first, the _Systematic
Series_, is a series representing the natural groups, among which all
animals and plants, from the highest to the lowest, are divided. The
second, the _Faunal and Floral Series_, is a series showing the
animals and plants characteristic of each of the grand divisions of
the earth's surface, which naturalists have established as a result of
their study of these two kingdoms of Nature. These two great
comprehensive exhibits should be supplemented by a number of _Special
Series_, illustrating the more interesting phenomena and phases of
life, such as the macroscopic and microscopic structure of animals
and plants and their development from the germ to the fully adult
individual, and special modifications of form and color by which
animals are protected from their enemies; the adaptations for peculiar
environments and modes of life; the characteristics of youth,
maturity, and old age; the variation in form, size, and color among
individuals of the same species; the domiciles and other works
constructed by birds, mammals, insects, and the like. To these series
should be added another of great importance, the _Economic Series_,
representing the animals and plants as related to the activities and
needs of man. Any one of these principal series in its full
development would more than fill the entire space now available.
3. There should be developed a museum of practical geology in the
broadest sense, which will be of service to every producer and
consumer of American mineral products, and to all students of geology
who are engaged in either economic or purely scientific
investigations.
In addition to the series of rocks and fossils illustrating the
stratigraphy and succession of the sedimentary rocks and the
systematic collection of minerals and ores, an exhibit showing how
geologic work benefits the daily life of the people should be
developed. An illustration of this would be a representation of the
artesian-water supply of the semi-arid region, showing the
stratification and structure of the sedimentary rocks, and how
hydrographic and geologic investigations clearly indicate the regions
in which artesian-water development may be carried on successfully.
Mining and areal geology could also be illustrated in such manner as
to place before the student and intelligent observer the import and
value of such work.
In most museums the principal effort has been to make a collection of
useful mineral products. This is desirable, but, from the broad view
of illustrating the practical in addition to the scientific side of
geology, it should be secondary. The best basis for classification on
the practical side of the museum exhibit appears to be the finished
mineral product. For instance, if pig iron be taken as a key material
in classification, the iron ores from which it has been obtained
should be arranged so as to show the various kinds whose combination
has resulted in the pig iron. In connection with this should be
grouped the geologic phenomena, which should include any geologic
conditions connected with the original deposition and the occurrence
of iron ores. This might include the conditions which have led to the
oxidation of pyrite and other sulphur compounds of iron, and to the
development of hydrous oxides of iron; also an illustration of what
has been demonstrated in regard to the solution of widely distributed
minerals in certain rocks, and their subsequent concentration in ore
bodies by metasomatic action. All the metals could be arranged under
such a classification, as also the nonmetallic products. The
preparation of such an exhibit would require many years of work, the
details of which would be considered as each mineral product was taken
in hand.
4. The fourth direction of development is toward the requirements of a
National University, which has already been sufficiently dwelt upon in
this connection.
CHILDREN'S MUSEUM.--The children gain a fair amount of information
from the general exhibit in any well-arranged museum, but it is
desirable that their interest should be aroused by having certain
exhibits made expressly for them. I would have a space set aside in
each of the three departments in which nothing should be exhibited
except for the children. It might be called a Museum Kindergarten.
Some of the preceding suggestions have been adopted by the museum
authorities and partially put into execution, and the carrying of them
out is dependent upon enlarged facilities for laboratory work and
exhibition space. During the administration of Dr. Goode the museum
developed as far as possible under the conditions surrounding it. No
one knew better than he that only by securing new buildings and
expanding the museum could it take the place in America that the
several national museums of Europe have taken in their respective
countries. It is well recognized that a public museum is a necessity
in every highly civilized community, and that, as has been so well
stated by Dr. Goode, "the degree of civilization which any nation,
city, or province has attained is best shown by the character of its
public museums and the liberality with which they are maintained." At
present New York city is, in this respect, in advance of all other
American cities and of the national Government. Whether the latter
will take its proper place by developing the National Museum as it has
developed the National Library remains to be seen. The question
whether they are willing to be represented by the museum as it is
to-day is one that the American people should consider and decide at
an early date; meantime, it is the duty of all interested in the
advancement of science and education to aid by every means in their
power the development of a National Museum that will be truly national
and American.
ARE JEWS JEWS?
BY JOSEPH JACOBS,
PRESIDENT OF THE JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
In the December (1898) and January (1899) numbers of Appletons'
Popular Science Monthly Prof. William Z. Ripley concludes the
remarkable series of articles on the Racial Geography of Europe,
originally delivered as Lowell Institute lectures, by a couple of
articles on the Jews. Strictly speaking, the articles might seem to
have no right in the particular series in which Professor Ripley has
included them, since their main object is to show that the Jews are
not a race but a people, and have therefore no claim to be considered
in the racial geography of any continent. But one can not regret that
a daring disregard for logic has caused Professor Ripley to conclude
his interesting series with the somewhat startling paradox that Jews
are not Jews, in the sense of the word in which both their friends and
their enemies have hitherto taken it. As Professor Ripley has been
good enough to refer to me as having written with some authority on
the subject, and as I have not been convinced by his arguments against
the comparative racial purity of the Jews, I am glad of an opportunity
to discuss the question, which is of equal theoretic and practical
interest.
The theoretic interest, with which alone we need concern ourselves
here, seems to me of two kinds. Professor Ripley, as a student of
anthropology, declares, as the result of his inquiries, that there has
been so large an admixture of round skulls with the (hypothetically
assumed) original long skulls of the Hebrews that all signs of racial
unity have disappeared. I, on the other hand, who have approached the
subject as a student of history,[10] see no evidence of any such large
admixture of alien elements in the race since its dispersion from
Palestine, and have come, therefore, to the opposite conclusion--that
the Jews now living are, to all intents and purposes, exclusively the
direct descendants of the Diaspora. Here, then, anthropology and
history--if Professor Ripley and I have respectively interpreted their
verdicts aright--appear to speak in two opposite senses, and no
conference at La Hague or elsewhere can appoint a court of appeal
which can decide between contrary propositions by two different
sciences.
[Footnote 10: To prevent misunderstanding, I should perhaps add
that I have not neglected the anthropological aspects of the
question. My paper on The Racial Characteristics of Modern Jews,
which appeared in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute
for 1885, contained, I believe Professor Ripley would allow, the
fullest account of Jewish anthropometry collected up to that
date.]
But the point in discussion seems to me to raise also a problem of
exceeding interest within the anthropological sphere itself. Professor
Ripley assumes that round heads beget round heads, and long heads
descend from long heads for all time unchanged. That appears to carry
with it the assumption that no amount of brain activity can increase
the mass of brain, that skull capacity has no relation to mental
capacity, and that alone among the organs of the body the brain and
skull are incapable of growth, change, or development. The _crux_ of
Jewish anthropology raises this problem, as I shall proceed to show,
and, if I have interpreted history aright, offers valuable material
toward its solution.
I might have met Professor Ripley's arguments on narrower grounds,
which would have enabled me to evade this larger question. His main, I
might say his solitary, argument is that contemporary Jews are
predominantly brachycephalic, or round-headed, whereas contemporary
Arabs, whom he takes as the type of the Semites, are as predominantly
dolichocephalic, or long-headed. Accepting Professor Ripley's own
criterion of purity of race, I might point to the almost universal
round-headedness of the Jew as a proof of their racial unity. The fact
that Arabs do not share that quality really does not affect the
question. Linguistically and geographically the Hebrews of history
were associated with the Aramæans and Assyrians of Asia Minor, and
Professor Ripley himself allows that Asia Minor was mainly
brachycephalic. Till Professor Ripley brings forward craniological
evidence that the cephalic index of the ancient Hebrews was below
77.8, his reference to the contemporary Arab must be ruled out of
court. But, quite apart from this, the Arabic evidence would be of
little significance, since the chief characteristic of Moslem
civilization has been the predominance of marriage by capture and
descent from slave concubines. Every caravan that has entered Arabia
for the last twelve hundred years has had its contingent of female
slaves of alien race, mainly from dolichocephalic Africa. I must
confess my surprise that Professor Ripley has based his main argument
on the shifting sands of Arabic racial purity.
The only attempt Professor Ripley makes toward a proof that the pure
Hebrew is dolichocephalic is a half-hearted endeavor to claim that
quality for the Sephardim, or Spanish and Portuguese Jews, descended
in the main from Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal in 1492. As a
matter of fact, the largest number of measurements of Sephardic heads
has been made by Mr. Spielman and myself,[11] and of the fifty-one
heads examined by us only eight were long-headed. Professor Ripley
gives a portrait of a Tunisian Jew, with index 75, who is also
probably of Sephardic origin, like most of the Jews of the
Mediterranean littoral. But, curiously enough, there is far more
evidence for the mixture of race among contemporary Sephardim than of
any other branch of Jews. Even while they were living in Spain as
avowed Jews they were persistently accused of intermarriage, chiefly
with the Moors, while a large number of contemporary Sephardim are
descended not from refugees of 1492, but from the so-called
Marranos--Jews who remained in Spain, professing Christianity and
marrying tolerably freely among the surrounding population. If one
wished to be hypercritical, one could trace the long-headedness of a
minority of Jews to this admixture of race from Spain.
[Footnote 11: On the Comparative Anthropometry of English Jews,
in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute for 1889.]
After all, I must insist that it is to history one must go to
determine a question of this sort. Jews have shown such marked
individuality throughout their career for the last two thousand years
among the nations--they have been so much in the world's eye
throughout that time--that any appreciable degree of intermarriage
would not have escaped notice, both by themselves and by their
enemies. Now there is practically no evidence of this kind during the
Christian era. Religious antipathy has been so strong throughout that
period as to form an almost insurmountable barrier to intermarriage
and the consequent proselytism to Judaism which is necessary for a
valid Jewish marriage. Sporadic cases doubtless occur, but their very
infrequency drew attention to them, and all that historical research
can discover is under one hundred cases throughout the middle ages,
scattered through Europe. Jewish nomenclature has special formulæ to
name the proselyte, and yet, though we have hundreds of the mediæval
lists of Jewish communities and martyrologies, it is the rarest thing
in the world to find one of these names referred to as "sons (or
daughters) of Abraham our father." In earlier days, doctors of the
Talmud, when discussing hypothetical cases, dismissed that of the
proselyte as being so rare.[12] In my Memoir in the Journal of the
Anthropological Institute for 1885 I have taken the marriage
statistics of modern Algeria as most nearly representing the most
favorable conditions that one could imagine at any time during the
middle ages, and have found that during nearly half a century
(1830-'77) there were only thirty mixed marriages out of an average
population of twenty-five thousand Jews--not one a year. The only
instances of proselytism on a large scale are those of the Chozars in
southern Russia, converted to Judaism in the eighth century, and the
Falashas of Abyssinia, about the same time. Yet these are an indirect
proof, by the method of difference, of the comparatively pure descent
of the rest of the Jews, for neither the Karaites, who are the
descendants of the Chozars, nor the Falashas show any of the
characteristic Jewish features or expression.
[Footnote 12: Babylonian Talmud, Gittin, 85a.]
Those who contest the purity of the Jewish race lay great stress upon
the Chozars as forming the nucleus of the Russian Polish Jews, who
are, as is well known, a predominant majority among present-day Jews,
probably ninety per cent of whom either dwell in the Russian dominions
or are descended from former inhabitants of old Poland. Yet against
this is the absence of any reference to Jews in Poland during the time
the Chozars flourished (eighth to eleventh centuries), while the very
speech of the Polish Jews--the so-called "Yiddish," really archaic
German mixed with Hebrew--indicates their true source, the German
kingdoms and principalities. Professor Ripley throws some doubt upon
the possibility of such large numbers as those of the Polish Jews
having been derived from Germany. Nowadays there are probably five
millions of Jews in the regions once possessed by Poland, but the
remarkable fertility of Jews is one of the most striking
characteristics of their vital statistics, to which, indeed, Professor
Ripley has called attention in his remarks upon their vitality. The
development of a generation depends, as is well known, upon the
relative number of deaths under five years of age, and it is just at
this period that Jewish mortality presents so favorable an aspect,
owing to the care of Jewish mothers and the absence of alcoholism
among the fathers. I have estimated that the Jewish population of the
world in 1730 (six generations ago) was only 1,300,000, whereas at the
present moment it is at least nine times as much. If one could assume
the same rate of progress to have existed through the middle ages the
Jewish population in the fourteenth century would have been not much
more than 25,000. Such a rate of progress is, however, extremely
unlikely, considering the large losses by persecution, which in Poland
alone, during the disastrous Cossack inroads between 1648 and 1656, is
said to have removed no less than 180,000 Jews. But, making every
allowance for this disturbance in the rate of progress, it would have
been quite possible for 50,000 Jews who had migrated to Poland in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to increase to over half a million
at the beginning of the eighteenth. Americans, who have seen nearly
half a million Russian Jews land upon their shores within the last
twenty years after crossing nearly half the world, need not be
incredulous as to the possibility of one tenth of that number passing
over the borders between Germany and Poland in a couple of centuries
during the middle ages, when, if means of transit were less numerous,
intensity of persecution and motives for emigration were ten times as
strong as even under the iron rule of the Russian Czar.
History, then, as I read it, has nothing to say against the purity of
descent of contemporary Jews from those of the Bible. What has
anthropology, as interpreted by Professor Ripley, to produce against
this negative evidence of history? Mainly, it would appear, the fact
that Jews of the present day are predominantly brachycephalic. Of the
fact there can be little doubt. The list given by Professor Ripley in
the Popular Science Monthly (vol. liv, page 340), of over twenty-five
hundred heads, would be sufficient to establish this. But the very
uniformity of the index is almost sufficient by itself to refute the
deduction Professor Ripley draws from it. If there had been any
general amount of admixture, that would have tended rather to produce
variety than uniformity. Surely Professor Ripley does not contend that
the Jewish young men and maidens, who, on his theory, so freely
welcomed outsiders into the family circle, have never fallen in love
with long-headed persons of the opposite sex. His argument requires
that the original Jews of the Diaspora were long-headed, and that they
have uniformly intermarried with the broad-headed varieties of the
genus _homo_. Now, he adduces no evidence whatever that Jews
originally were dolichocephalic, and even if he succeeded in proving
this he would have the further difficulty of finding a European race
with skulls so broad as to raise the average index of the race
considerably over 80. If we assume that the original index of the
Jewish skull was 75, Professor Ripley would have to find some race
with an average index of nearly 90 before the mixture would raise the
contemporary Jewish skull to its present broad-headedness. Dr. Ammon
has shown[13] that there are only two small regions in Europe where
such abnormally broad skulls exist, neither of them centers of Jewish
population.
[Footnote 13: Die Natürliche Auslese beim Menschen, Jena, 1883.]
But Dr. Ammon has shown more. By comparison with the skulls found in
the long barrows in Germany, he shows that the index of German skulls
has risen from 77 to no less than 83 during the last thousand years or
so; and he further shows, by reasoning similar to that which I have
just given, that this rise in index can not be due to any admixture of
race. Now, to what is this rise in head index due? Dr. Ammon, who is a
professed disciple of Weismann, does not go into the question of
causation, but the simplest and most obvious explanation is that
cranial capacity has followed brain development, and that, roughly
speaking, brachycephalism implies intellectual development. A few
instances may be given, confirming this impression of the superior
intellectual capacity of the broad-headed. Prof. Karl Pearson, in his
Chances of Death (vol. i, page 205), has given the following sexual
ratios of the superiority of English, German, and French men over the
opposite sex:
------------------+----------+---------+---------
| English. | German. | French.
------------------+----------+---------+---------
| | |
Brain weight | 1.120 | 1.117 | 1.125
Skull capacity | 1.179 | 1.126 | 1.164
Stature | 1.081 | 1.078 | 1.069
------------------+----------+---------+---------
In other words, men's skulls contain about eight per cent more and
their brains weigh four per cent more than women's, even allowing for
the difference in height. So, too, there is a uniform increase of
cubic capacity from the skulls of the Australians (75 cubic
centimetres) up to the Teutons (93.5 cubic centimetres).[14] The same
authority gives the average weight of brain in a number of
brachycephalic individuals as 1,314 grammes, as against 1,287 grammes
for dolichocephalic cases.[15] Professor Pearson points out that the
higher the caste in India the broader the skull, the Brahmans being
highest, with an index of 78.86, according to the measurements of
Risley. The same writer gives a long list (page 290) of the indexes of
skulls of some thirty-seven races, ranging from Australians at the
bottom of the list, with 70.34, and headed by mediæval Jews (only
twelve skulls), with an index of 84.74. Every indication seems to
point out that in races where progress depends upon brain rather than
muscle the brain-box broadens out as a natural consequence. Little
investigation has as yet been made as to the influence of brain
development on the form of the skull, but what little has been done
all points in the same direction. Dr. Giulio Chiarugi[16] has made
some careful measurements of twenty-one brains, and has shown that in
every instance there is much greater complexity of the cerebral
convolutions in the brachycephalic as compared with the
dolichocephalic skulls, in which the brains were contained. From the
nature of the sutures of the skull it is tolerably obvious that if
brain capacity produces an enlargement of brain, the consequent
internal pressure on the skull will be lateral and tend to produce
brachycephalism. The application of all this to the case of Jews seems
obvious. If they had been forced by persecution to become mainly
blacksmiths, one would not have been surprised to find their biceps
larger than those of other folk; and similarly, as they have been
forced to live by the exercise of their brains, one should not be
surprised to find the cubic capacity of their skulls larger than that
of their neighbors. When it is remembered that they are, owing to
their persecutions, the shortest of all European folk, their relative
superiority in brain comes out even more strikingly.
[Footnote 14: Topinard, Éléments d'Anthropologie, 1885, p. 612.]
[Footnote 15: Ibid., p. 568.]
[Footnote 16: La Forma del Cervello umano e le variazioni
correlative del Cranio, Siena, 1886.]
The conclusion I have thus drawn from anthropological data receives
remarkable confirmation from the results of an inquiry I made on the
Comparative Distribution of Jewish Ability, and contributed to the
Anthropological Institute in 1886. Applying the methods of Galton, I
compared the celebrities produced by the Jewish race during the last
hundred years with those of Englishmen and Scotchmen, and came to the
conclusion that the race, as a whole, took rank between Scotchmen and
Englishmen in intellectual capacity, while if the comparison had been
confined to western Jews, who alone have had an opportunity of
displaying their talents, they would have come out superior to both.
From the anthropological side we should expect that the
brachycephalism of Jews would show itself in superior mental capacity,
and this is confirmed by the number of distinguished persons of Jewish
blood recorded in the European dictionaries of biography.
The anthropological and sociological importance of this result, if
confirmed by further inquiry, seems to me of very great significance
for the science of anthropology, and for this reason I have insisted
so much upon it. Skull capacity and cephalic index are not so much
indications of race as of intellect. If it is found that, as a rule,
each race, and even each people, tends to have a uniform cephalic
index, that would merely imply that the sociological conditions of the
said race or people were tolerably uniform as regards intellectual
development. Australians, who have had no opportunity of pitting their
wits against any other competing race, and have depended for their
existence on the fleetness of their legs and the capacity of their
stomachs to carry food from one orgy to another, have used their
brains less than all other human races, and have the narrowest skulls
of all. Teutons, who have had the largest sphere for intellectual
rivalry with their neighbors, have the broadest skulls of all except
the Jews, who have, so to speak, lived by their wits the last two
thousand years. The evidence produced by Professor Ripley of
long-headed Jews among the lower developed communities only shows that
where the brain is not much exercised the skull is not broadened.
So far, then, from history and anthropology giving contrary verdicts
with regard to the racial purity of the Jews, the above considerations
would seem to show that they rather confirm one another's
interpretation of the facts. If brain capacity and skull index follow
the intellectual struggle for existence, we should not be surprised to
find the Jews mostly broad-headed. If there had been much
intermixture with races who had less cause to exercise their brains in
the struggle for existence, we might expect a greater admixture of
dolichocephalism among them. To my mind a much stronger case could
have been made out for the admixture of the Jews by the large number
of blondes among them, ranging to about twenty per cent, but, as a
rule, in Europe blond types are dolichocephalic, and the evidence of
admixture that could be drawn from the admixture of blue eyes or brown
hair among the Jews is counterbalanced by that very evidence of their
uniform round-headedness, upon which Professor Ripley lays so much
stress. In the memoir I have frequently quoted I have given reasons
for believing that there was a blond as well as a brunette type among
the ancient Jews, and till evidence is shown to the contrary the
presence of the fair Jew is only an indication of descent from the
earlier blond strain of the race.
Professor Ripley has scarcely taken into account the more positive
arguments I have adduced in my memoir for the comparative purity of
Jewish descent. I have pointed out a definite class of Jews--the
Cohens, or priestly descendants of Aaron--who can not, according to
Jewish law, marry proselytes. These still constitute, I have
calculated, some five per cent of Jews even at the present day. He
appears to think that this is merely a matter of name, and asks how I
would explain the existence of quasi-Jewish names, such as Davis,
Harris, Phillips, and Hart, among Christian populations of the
Anglo-Saxon world. As a matter of fact, it can be proved that, on the
contrary, these names among the Jews have been adopted for "mimicry"
reasons from the corresponding Christian names which are mostly
derived from the Bible. But, at the best, Professor Ripley's argument
would merely prove a certain amount of Jewish blood among the
Christian populations of Europe and America, which nobody would deny.
That Jews, under the pressure of persecution or for other reasons,
have abjured their faith, married Christian wives, and become merged
in the surrounding populations, is undoubtedly a fact, but does not in
any way affect the relative purity of the "remnant" which has remained
true to its faith. It certainly does not affect the very important
fact that the ancestry of at least five per cent of Jews at the
present day can not have married proselytes, owing to the rigid
requirements of Jewish law.
So far as I understand the latter part of Professor Ripley's second
article, he appears to contend that the remarkable similarity of the
Jewish physiognomy all over the world has no force in proving their
racial unity. This is, of course, from the popular point of view, the
strongest argument which Professor Ripley has to meet. Speaking
generally, one can always tell a Jew or Jewess by the Jewish features
and expression. So marked is this that Andrée mentions an instance
where the negroes of the Gold Coast even distinguish between other
whites and Jews by its means, saying not "Here are three whites
coming," but "Here are two whites and a Jew." So marked a community of
expression and appearance would be, to an ordinary mind, an absolute
proof of unity of race, but Professor Ripley prefers to judge by the
skull beneath, rather than by the expression and features on the
surface. He hints at some obscure embryological process by which
Jewish mothers can stamp on their offspring the Ghetto expression,
whatever be the racial formation of skull. According to him, it would
appear that noses are more plastic in this regard than skulls. I do
not quite see how this would work out in detail. Are we to suppose
that a pair of snub-nosed converts to Judaism would produce offspring
with the characteristic Jewish nose because the lady convert had her
imagination influenced by the hook-noses surrounding her? Are we to
suppose that round heads can only beget round heads, but that snub
noses can produce the hooked variety as a mere result of imagination?
Mere expression one could understand could be produced by sociological
causes, and it is certainly my impression that Jews who mix more with
their fellow-citizens lose a good deal of the characteristic Jewish
expression, but that Jewish features should be influenced in this way
few people would be prepared to allow. Jewish "nostrility," as I have
termed it, and the "Jew's eye," can not be affected by change of
environment. They can be affected, I grant, by admixture with races
snub-nosed or dull-eyed, but as they have persisted throughout the
ages they are themselves a striking proof of the absence of such
admixture.
Altogether I remain unconvinced by Professor Ripley's arguments as to
any large admixture of alien elements among contemporary Jews as
unvouched for by history, and not necessarily postulated by
anthropology. The broad skulls of the Jews, if they differ from those
of earlier date (of which Professor Ripley has produced no evidence
whatever), are due to the development of Jewish capacity, owing to
their consistent attention to education and to the conditions under
which they have pursued the struggle for existence. The persistence of
Jewish features throughout the ages and the existence of an
influential minority who are not allowed by Jewish law to marry
outside their race is further proof of the position for which I have
throughout contended. If there has been a tolerably large admixture of
Jewish and alien blood throughout the Christian centuries it has been
by conversions to Christianity or Islam, not by adoption of Judaism,
and it is confirmed by history that the offspring have wandered away
from the Jewish race and have not affected the more conservative
remnant.
The significance of this result for the science of anthropology can
not be overrated. The great question of the science is that expressed
by Dr. Galton as "the struggle between Nature and nurture"--the
difference that social influences can produce on men of the same race.
Jews afford the science almost the sole instance in which this problem
can be studied in its least complex form. My own investigations have
shown that social environment has a direct influence on such
anthropometrical data as height and breathing capacity. The Jews of
the West End of London, though of the same race as those of the East
End, are superior in height and other external qualities, and this
superiority can thus be shown to be due entirely to nurture.
Similarly, if the argument I have previously adduced is correct, the
brachycephalism of the Jew is a proof that intellectual development
produces broad heads, and that, roughly speaking, the cephalic index
is a key to intellectual capacity. I should rather reverse Professor
Ripley's main contentions: breadth of skull is not a criterion of
race, but of intellectual development; whereas features, which are not
directly influenced by social or intellectual characteristics, are the
true index to racial purity.
SOME PRACTICAL PHASES OF MENTAL FATIGUE.
BY PROF. M. V. O'SHEA.
I.
Modern studies in neurology have contributed much to our knowledge of
the function of the nervous system as a whole and of its several
parts, and also of the relation of psychical activity to cerebral
conditions and processes. The architecture of the neural mechanism
delineated by these investigations is not only interesting in itself
on account of the marvelous unity of things apparently diverse, but it
is at the same time suggestive respecting its office as the physical
instrument through which mind must express itself in this world.
Psychologists now quite generally conceive of a living being, human or
otherwise, as a reacting organism, receiving impressions from its
environment and responding to them in some characteristic manner. To
be fitted for this office an individual must be provided with
appliances alike for the reception of stimulations and for their
transformation into incitements to muscular activity. In the human
species Nature has ordained that action need not follow immediately
and inevitably upon any sense stimulus; fortunately, it may be
deferred, so that when it does finally occur it will be the resultant
of any given present impression modified by others previously received
and treasured up in memory, as we say. To accomplish this really great
feat, Nature had to devise an elaborate contrivance, interposed
between incoming messages and outgoing impulses, to act as a moderator
or transformer of a very extraordinary and intricate character--the
central nervous system, comprising the brain and spinal cord. That it
may be able to meet the requirements of its office, this system must
be equipped with two principal kinds of apparatus--cells, which will
serve as storehouses of energy to be employed in keeping the machinery
running, and association fibers or pathways, which will put any one
cell into communication with others in the cerebral community.
The item which will engage our attention principally here relates to
the primary function of the nerve cell--to store up vital forces in
the form of highly unstable chemical compounds,[17] which may upon
slight disturbance be broken down, the static energy represented in
their union thus becoming dynamic. Those who have given special
attention to the matter seem to agree that all activity, physical as
well as mental, involves the expenditure of a portion of this
energy.[18] It may perhaps be mentioned in passing that when this
conception was first being presented some persons hastily constructed
the theory that what people had been calling mind was nothing more nor
less than a certain mode of manifestation of this mysterious but yet
physical force. While abundant evidence, gained from various sciences
by recent research, leads one to the conviction that in some unknown
manner psychical and neural processes are closely co-ordinated, yet
not a single investigator of standing claims that they are identical.
There is doubtless among some in our day too great a tendency,
unconscious though it may be for the most part, to declare that a
description of the physical correlates or antecedents of mental
phenomena fully accounts for the latter in respect alike of their
nature and their modes of manifestation; but those who find themselves
coming to such conclusions might be both interested in and benefited
by examining the opinions of great naturalists and psychologists who
have reflected long and profoundly upon the world-old problem of the
connections between body and mind--such men as Lotze,[19] Darwin,[20]
Romanes,[21] Wallace,[22] Fiske,[23] Drummond,[24] Wundt,[25] and
many others of equal scientific attainments.
[Footnote 17: For chemical formulæ of some of the compounds, see
Ladd, Outlines of Physiological Psychology, p. 13.]
[Footnote 18: For the opinions of investigators, as Mosso,
Lombard, Maggiora, Kraeplin, and others, see Pedagogical
Seminary, vol. ii, No. 1, pp. 13-17; Scripture, The New
Psychology, chapter xvi; and Educational Review, vol. xv, pp. 246
_et seq._]
[Footnote 19: Microcosmus, p. 162.]
[Footnote 20: Descent of Man, p. 66.]
[Footnote 21: Mental Evolution in Man, pp. 218 _et seq._]
[Footnote 22: Darwinism, p. 469.]
[Footnote 23: Destiny of Man in the Light of his Origin.]
[Footnote 24: Ascent of Man.]
[Footnote 25: Human and Animal Psychology, pp. 5-7 and 440-445.]
The architecture and chemical constitution of the neural elements
indicate unmistakably, it seems, that they were so constructed that in
their functioning they would be amenable to the law of the
conservation of energy, and recent investigations have produced some
experimental evidence in support of this view. Hodge,[26] who
succeeded in making microscopical examinations of living nerve cells
while under stimulation, demonstrated that the cell by this treatment
was depleted of its contents, as revealed in the gradual reduction of
its size. In corroboration of these results it was found that the
cerebral cells in animals were larger in the morning than after a
day's activities, indicating that depletion must have taken place
during waking life, followed by recuperation in sleep. Some
interesting data relating in a way to this matter are easily gained in
the laboratories by the use of the plethysmograph, which is designed
to record the degree of blood pressure in different parts of the body.
This instrument may be put upon the wrists and head, for instance, and
it may be observed, when a person is subjected to certain influences
whether, there is any alteration in blood supply in either region. It
may be noticed, as a matter of fact, that when one is required to
think diligently upon any problem, or being asleep is awakened or even
disturbed by a noise in his environment, the volume of blood decreases
in the wrist and increases in the head.[27] This same phenomenon is
shown by experiments with the scientific cradle.[28] The inference
from these data seems reasonable, that mental activity causes an
expenditure of nerve force, which Nature seeks to replenish by
inciting an unusual flow of nutritive-bearing fluid to the cerebral
cortex. It has been shown, in further illustration of this law, that
thought increases the temperature of the head, indicating that heat is
generated through molecular activity; and also that psychical action
increases waste products in the system, which may be derived only from
the degradation of substances in nerve cells.[29] So information
obtained from various other sources points toward the conclusion that
in all activity energy stored in nerve cells is dissipated.
[Footnote 26: For a complete statement of methods and results,
see Hodge, American Journal of Psychology, vol. ii, pp. 3 _et
seq._; and vol. iii, pp. 530 _et seq._]
[Footnote 27: See Pedagogical Seminary, vol. ii, pp. 12 _et
seq._]
[Footnote 28: Ibid., _op. cit._]
[Footnote 29: Cowles, Neurasthenia and its Mental Symptoms, pp.
17 _et seq._]
Recent experimental studies have given us reasons for believing that
nerve cells in different individuals yield up their energy in response
to stimulation with varying degrees of readiness.[30] Experience
corroborates what Professor Bryan[31] has said: that some persons
possess a leaky nervous system, wherefrom their vitalities flow away
without issue in useful results. In such individuals activity will be
likely to be in excess of that which the stimulus occasioning it
should normally produce. Every one must have seen children, and adults
as well, who when they hear a slight noise, for instance, which others
do not mind, react with great vigor by jumping or screaming; or, when
spoken to unexpectedly the face flushes, the lip quivers, and they
become physically uncontrolled in a measure. In these instances the
persons are unduly profligate in the expenditure of their means, and,
in consequence, their capital is relatively soon exhausted.[32]
[Footnote 30: Educational Review, _op. cit._]
[Footnote 31: Addresses and Proceedings of the National
Educational Association, 1897, p. 279.]
[Footnote 32: _Cf._ Warner, The Study of Children, chapters viii
and ix.]
The writer last year conducted some experiments upon school children
which yielded results that appear to confirm the view here set forth.
Scripture's steadiness gauge was used in one test. This is designed to
investigate stability of control by requiring a person to direct a
light rod under guidance of the eye upon a point several feet distant,
failure to accomplish this being announced by the ringing of an
electric bell. The subject is usually required to make the trial
fifteen times at a single test, and the number of successful attempts
is taken to be in a way, although not always reliable, an index to his
power of co-ordination. But more important than the success or failure
in accomplishing the task is the index it affords of the nervous
condition of the subject as revealed in the expressions of face and
body. Tests were made in the morning, shortly following the opening of
school, and again at half past eleven o'clock, or thereabouts, after
the pupils had been working over their lessons for about two hours.
One boy of eleven years, A. M., is a fair illustration of what might
not inappropriately be called an exhaustive type, wherein nervous
energy is readily depleted because of incessant waste. In the morning
tests he was well controlled and accurate. A record of five tests made
at half past eleven all show that after four or five attempts to place
the rod upon the point the hand became very unsteady, the lips
compressed, the region about the eyes showed unusual constraint, and
the hand not being used was tightly clinched. Ten trials were usually
sufficient to produce twitchings or _tics_ in the face and body,
although nothing of this was ever noticed at other times. This boy
invariably made hard work of the task, and all the physical
accompaniments indicated excessive motor stimulation following, of
course, upon an unduly excited condition of the cerebral cells. At the
close of the experiments he generally seemed exhausted, and upon three
occasions it was thought best not to permit him to make the entire
fifteen trials.
Another pupil, W. R., two years younger, illustrates a different type.
In the morning trials he was no better than A. M., but he, too, was
subjected to five different tests at half past eleven, with the result
that he could in every instance complete the task without any apparent
fatigue. There was no constraint apparent in the face or hands, no
unusual effort to co-ordinate the muscles of the body, and no
twitchings of any kind. Now, it seems probable that in the case of W.
R. the brain was able to adjust effort in right degree to the needs of
the occasion, while with A. M. there was such prodigality in the
expenditure of energy in various irrelevant motor tensions and
activities that it not only defeated its purpose, but it was soon
largely spent. A. M. showed this tendency to nervous extravagance in
all the work of the school. While an unusually bright boy, he yet
became fatigued in the performance of duties that W. R. could
discharge with no evidence of overstrain; indeed, the latter boy
seemed never to reach a point beyond which he could not go with safety
if he chose.
Further illustrations of this principle of individual differences in
the conservation of nervous energy were afforded by another simple
experiment. The apparatus employed consisted of a plate of smoked
glass set in a frame so that it could be moved horizontally. Just
touching the glass, and adjusted to it by a delicate spring, was a
fine metal point which could be maintained at any height by a silk
thread to be held in the fingers of the subject to be experimented
upon, who stood with closed eyes endeavoring to keep his hand
perfectly quiet for one half minute. During the test the glass was
moved slowly in the frame, the metal point thus tracing a line which
was a faithful index to most of the movements, at any rate, of the
subject's hand. Five sets of experiments were made upon a number of
pupils in the morning soon after the opening of school, and again just
before the noon recess. The accompanying tracings are reproductions of
those gained at one of the tests, and are typical examples. The first
two were secured from a girl, M. L. R., eleven years of age. The one
made at half past eleven, after two and a quarter hours' work in
school, shows a significant phenomenon which could be easily witnessed
during the experiment. She had become so fatigued that all muscular
expressions were unusually constrained. During the short period while
the experiment continued one could observe the arm and fingers
contracting, which accounts for the upward direction of the tracing.
The body swayed almost to the point of falling, the fingers of the
hand not employed were clinched, and all the expressions indicated
great tension. The second set of tracings, gained from a girl, E. H.,
twelve years of age, shows evidences of marked fatigue after a few
hours' work; but the effect upon the bodily activities is quite in
contrast with that of the case just mentioned. Here there was
relaxation of the muscles, a general letting go of the whole body,
revealed in the tracings taking an abrupt downward direction. The
third group of tracings was gained from W. R., whose characteristics
have already been adverted to, and who indicated here, as in the other
tests, that his morning's duties had had no serious effect upon his
nervous energies.
[Illustration: M. L. R.]
[Illustration: E. H.]
[Illustration: W. R.]
It should be said in passing that the principle of healthful mental
growth and activity seems to require that in education of any sort
cerebral cells should be freely exercised up to the point of fatigue,
but never beyond; for after this there is not only no progress, but
what has been gained by previous training may even be lost. And, what
is more serious, the undue depletion of the nerve cell renders its
recovery extremely slow, and investigation has shown that school
children when overtaxed return to their studies day after day in a
fatigued condition, their energies not being fully restored until the
long vacation brings the needed rest.[33] Those who train athletes
realize that the fatigue limit must not be passed if possible, and
this law is recognized as well in the training of racing horses,[34]
One who has observed his experience in learning to ride the bicycle
must have discovered that practice pursued when in a condition of
exhaustion operates rather to retard than to promote facility. So in
matters of the mind activity carried to excess, which point is further
removed in some cases than in others, results in retardation of
growth, even though no more serious consequences ensue.
[Footnote 33: Educational Review, _op. cit._]
[Footnote 34: Bryan, Addresses and Proceedings of the National
Educational Association, 1897.]
II.
As might be readily inferred, even if we were lacking experimental
evidence, fatigue interferes with the normal activities alike of body
and mind. One of the earliest and most conspicuous effects may be
observed by any one in the people about him--a decrease in the
rapidity of physical action. The child depleted of nervous energy, for
whatever reason, will usually be slower than his fellows in performing
the various activities of home or school. If observed during gymnastic
exercises it may be noticed that his execution of the various commands
is delayed; in responding to signals he is behind his comrades whose
nervous capital is not so largely spent. And what is here said of the
child is, of course, equally true in principle of the adult; the
effect of fatigue in his case will be revealed in less lively,
vivacious, and vigorous conduct in the affairs of business or of
society. Mosso,[35] Burgerstein,[36] Scripture,[37] Bryan,[38] and
others have been able to confirm by scientific experiment what people
have thus long been conscious of in a way--that cerebral fatigue
renders one slower, more lethargic in his activities. It seems clear,
to hazard an explanation, that when nerve cells become depleted up to
the point of fatigue Nature designs that they should be released from
service in order that repair may take place. This rhythm of action and
repose seems to be common to all forms of life. The phenomenon of
sleep is an expression of this principle, and is characterized by
almost entire absence of activity.
[Footnote 35: Pedagogical Seminary, vol. ii, pp. 20 _et seq._]
[Footnote 36: Ibid., _op. cit._]
[Footnote 37: The New Psychology, pp. 128-132.]
[Footnote 38: The Development of Voluntary Motor Ability, p. 76.]
Again, fatigue disturbs the power of accurate and sustained bodily
co-ordinations, particularly of the peripheral muscles, or those
engaged in the control of the more delicate movements of the body, as
of the fingers. Every one must have had the experience that consequent
upon a period of exacting labor (physical or mental), or worry, the
hand becomes unsteady, as revealed in writing or other fine work, the
voice is not so perfectly controlled as at other times, and perhaps
involuntary twitchings or _tics_ make their appearance in the face or
elsewhere. Ordinarily people regard these phenomena as evidences
simply of "nervousness," but, as commonly used, this term does not
take account of the neural conditions responsible for these abnormal
manifestations. Warner[39] points out that nerve cells in a state of
fatigue become impulsive or spasmodic in their action; there is not
such perfect balance as usually exists between them when in a normal,
rested condition, and this results in lessened power of inhibition.
Scripture[40] and others have shown by experiments in the laboratory
that fatigue renders co-ordination less sustained and accurate. If,
now, one observes a group of people, young or old, in which some or
all have passed the fatigue limit, he can see the cause of many of
those occurrences which give the teacher in the school, for example,
continual trouble. The children will doubtless be moving incessantly
in their seats, books and pencils may be dropping upon the floor, and
various signals are responded to slowly and in a disorderly manner.
The restlessness is probably due for the most part to the effort of
the pupils to relieve the tension of muscles induced by overstrain,
while inability to accurately co-ordinate the muscles employed in
holding pencils and books causes objects to slip out of the pupils'
hands upon the floor. One has but to observe his own experience, and
he will soon realize that when nervously exhausted he is not so
certain of retaining securely small objects which he handles. This
accounts for what is sometimes regarded as carelessness in school
children as well as in adults, exhibited in slovenly writing, in
breaking dishes, and in similar occurrences. Any task demanding
delicate and sustained adjustment of the finer muscles on the part of
one fatigued will be liable to be performed in a careless manner, as
we are apt to feel. Often more than not the term carelessness probably
denotes impaired neural conditions, as well as consequent mental
dispersion, if one may so speak, leading to inaccurate and
intermittent mental and physical adjustments to duties in hand.
[Footnote 39: Mental Faculty, pp. 76, 77.]
[Footnote 40: The New Psychology, pp. 236-248.]
Cowles[41] observes that the first prominent and serious mental
concomitant of nervous depletion is revealed in the inability to
direct the attention continuously upon any given subject; and James
has said that when one is fatigued the mind wanders in various
directions, snatching at everything which promises relief from the
object of immediate attention. Experiments in the laboratory upon the
keenness of sense discrimination of data appealing to sight, hearing,
touch, and the other senses, show that there is lessened ability in
conditions of fatigue;[42] and this is accounted for probably by the
waning power of attention. The mind can be held to one thing,
excluding irrelevant matters. This phenomenon is further illustrated
in the following simple experiment: The pupils in a large graded
school in Buffalo, N. Y., were required upon three successive days, at
half past nine o'clock and again at half past eleven in the morning,
to trisect a line three inches long. The results, calculated for one
hundred and fifty children, show that on the average they were several
millimetres nearer correct in the morning trisections than in those
just before the midday recess.[43] It seems that this test measured
the degree of attention which pupils were able to exert at different
hours during the day, and it confirmed what must in a way be known to
every one--that a day's work in school reduces the energy of
attention. Doubtless every instructor has remarked how much more
difficult it is at half past eleven than at ten to hold the thoughts
of students to the subject in hand, and if recitations in intricate
studies occur late in the forenoon, progress will be slower and more
errors will be made, simply because pupils are unable to attend so
critically.
[Footnote 41: _Op. cit._, p. 47.]
[Footnote 42: See Educational Review, _op. cit._; Galton, Journal
of the Anthropological Institute, 1888, pp. 153 _et seq._]
[Footnote 43: Since this article was written extensive
investigations on school-room fatigue have been made in the
schools of Madison, Wis., under the writer's direction, and the
general principles here mentioned have been corroborated.]
The significance of this latter effect of fatigue must be apparent
when it is realized that attention is at the basis of all the
intellectual processes. If one can not attend vitally, he can not
perceive readily or accurately; he will be unable to recall fully or
speedily what has formerly been thoroughly mastered; and, most serious
of all, he can not so well compare objects or ideas to discover their
relationships--that is, he is not so ready or accurate in reason. In
fatigue, then, one really becomes stupid. Suppose a fatigued pupil in
school working over his spelling lesson, for instance; he will be
liable to make errors both in copying from the board and in
reproducing what he already knows. In recitations in history, memory
will be halting; what has apparently been made secure some time before
now seems to be out of reach. In those studies requiring reflection,
as arithmetic, grammar, geography, and the like, the reasoner will be
unable to hold his thoughts continuously to the matters under
consideration, and so will be unable to detect relationships between
them readily and accurately. When one considers, in view of what is
here set forth, that many persons, adults as well as students, are for
one cause or another in a constant state of fatigue, he can see the
explanation of the stupid type of individual, in some instances at any
rate.
The effects upon the emotional activities, while not so easily
detected by experimentation, may yet be readily observed in one's own
experiences and in the conduct of persons in his environment.
Cowles,[44] Beard,[45] and others assure us as physicians that
neurasthenia gives rise to irritability, gloominess, despondency, and
sets free a brood of fears and other kindred more or less abnormal
feelings. Wey,[46] in his studies upon the physical condition of young
criminals, has found that in the majority of instances there appears
to be some neural defect or deficiency, mostly of the nature of
depletion, which he believes contributes to alienate the moral
feelings of the individual. There is little doubt that viciousness has
a physiological basis. It is probable that in such a case the highest
cerebral regions, through which are transmitted the spiritual
activities last developed in the race, becoming incapacitated first by
fatigue, are rendered incapable of inhibiting impulses from the lower
regions, which manifest themselves in an antisocial way.
[Footnote 44: _Op. cit._, pp. 47 _et seq._]
[Footnote 45: _Op. cit._, pp. 36-117.]
[Footnote 46: Papers in Penology, 1891, pp. 57-69; _cf._ Collin,
also in same, pp. 27, 28; Wright, American Journal of Neurology
and Psychiatry, vols. ii and iii, pp. 135 _et seq._]
III.
It follows from what has gone before that cerebral fatigue is a most
important matter to be reckoned with in all the affairs of life, but
especially in education, where the foundations for nervous vigor or
weakness are being permanently established, and where relatively
little can be accomplished in either intellectual or moral training
unless the physical instrument of mind be kept in good repair. It
needs no argument to beget the conviction that we should if possible
ascertain what circumstances produce fatigue most frequently in the
schoolroom, so that they may be ameliorated and their injurious
consequences thus avoided. What, then, are the most important causes?
It is well to appreciate at the outset that every individual has a
certain amount of nervous capital which, when expended, leaves him a
bankrupt, and it is of supreme import to him that something should
always be kept on the credit side of his account. If we would deal
most wisely with a pupil, then, whose activities we are able to
direct, we should know just what demands we could make upon his
energies without fatiguing him. But we can not hope at the present
time and under present conditions to discover with accuracy the
fatigue point of each individual, and even if we were able to do so,
we would doubtless find it next to impossible to observe it at all
times in our teaching, especially in our large graded schools. But we
can at any rate adjust our requirements with some degree of accuracy
to the average capacity of the whole.
Regarding the number of hours of mental application per day which may
be safely expected of a pupil in school, investigations have tended to
show that there is a danger of requiring too many. When pupils return
to school morning after morning without having recovered from the
previous day's labors, it is evident that too heavy draughts are being
made upon their nervous capital. It may be said in reply that many
factors conspire to produce this depleted condition, as insufficient
sleep, inadequate nutrition, and outside duties; but the answer is
that under such unfavorable circumstances less work may be demanded.
As the curriculum is planned in many places, alike in graded and
ungraded schools, the pupil is expected to be employed in the school
for five or six hours a day no matter what may be his age, and to this
work should be added studies at home for the older students. Now, as
Kraeplin[47] has justly observed, Nature ordains that a young child
should not give six hours' daily concentrated attention in the
schoolroom, but, rather, she has taken pains to implant deeply within
him a profound instinct to preserve his mental health by refusing to
attend to hard work for such a long period. Consequently, in such an
educational _régime_, the mind of the pupil continually wanders from
the duties in hand. The most serious aspect of this is apparent, that
when attention is constantly demanded and not given, or when a pupil
is pretending or attempting to keep his thoughts turned in a given
direction, yet allows them to drift aimlessly because he is
practically unable to control them, he is acquiring an unfortunate
habit of mental dissipation. It seems certain that healthful and
efficient mental activity requires that a child apply himself in a
maximum degree for a relatively short period, the duration differing
with the age of the individual and the balance of nervous energy to
his credit; and then he should relax, attention being released for a
time.
[Footnote 47: A Measure of Mental Capacity, Popular Science
Monthly, vol. xlix, p. 758.]
Experiments conducted by Burgerstein[48] and at Leland Stanford Junior
University[49] emphasize a particular phase of this principle--that
too long continued mental application without relaxation induces
fatigue more readily than when there are comparatively short periods
of effort, followed by intermissions of rest. Thus when pupils (and
the younger they are the more is this true) have a given amount of
work to do requiring their attention say for an hour and a half they
will accomplish most with least waste of energy by breaking up this
long stretch into several parts, interspersing a few minutes of free
play. With adults application may profitably continue for longer
periods, but even here the rhythm of concentration and relaxation must
be observed in order that effort may have the most fruitful issue.
There would assuredly be less dullness, carelessness, and disorder in
our schools, high and low, and in our homes, if this law were observed
in the arrangement of the activities of daily life. The writer knows
of a normal school where the work begins at half past eight in the
morning and continues until one o'clock, with a pause of only ten
minutes in the middle of the session. During the passage of classes
from room to room at the close of recitations, monitors are placed in
the halls to prevent any exhibition of freedom in communicating with
one another or in the movements of the body. Here there is little if
any relief to the attention, since pupils are under practically the
same constraint as when reciting in Latin, Greek, or geometry. This
enthronement of discipline, which we all seem natively to think
necessary that we may prevent the reversionary tendencies of youth, is
sure to breed in some measure the very maladies--stupidity and
disorder--which various agencies in society are striving to cure by
all sorts of formulæ.
[Footnote 48: _Op. cit._]
[Footnote 49: Pedagogical Seminary, vol. iii, pp. 213 _et seq._]
In the normal, well-organized adult brain the various areas are
closely knit together by association pathways or fibers,[50] which
renders it possible to employ in particular direction the energies
generated over large regions. But this development comes relatively
late and is not fully completed under about thirty-three years of age,
it is now believed. It is in a measure, then, impossible for the young
child to utilize the energies produced in one part of the brain in
activities involving remote sections. One who observes little children
in their spontaneous activities can not fail to note evidences in
plenty in illustration of this principle. It should be apparent, then,
why a school programme so arranged that a lesson in writing is
followed by one in written language, this by written number, and this
in turn by written spelling, or possibly by a written reproduction of
a lesson in Nature or literature, is admirably suited to exhaust the
overused areas of pupils' brains, whereupon the mental and physical
effects of fatigue make their appearance. In one of the large cities
of our country the amount of time spent in writing was calculated for
all the grades in the schools, and it was found that at least one hour
was required of the children in every grade, and in the fourth and
fifth grades they were engaged for two hundred minutes every day in
writing in some form or other.
[Footnote 50: Donaldson, The Growth of the Brain, chapters ix to
xiii.]
Doubtless every one has observed how readily he becomes fatigued when
he is engaged in activities demanding very delicate muscular
adjustments--threading a needle, for instance. Work of this character
involves particularly the higher co-ordinating areas of the brain,
those controlling the more precise and elaborate adjustments of the
body, and this work makes large demands upon one's nervous energy.
This seems to be pre-eminently true of the child, in whose brain the
highest regions are yet comparatively undeveloped, so that much
exercise of them leads quickly to exhaustion. Those activities, then,
which compel a great amount of exact co-ordination of young children
will easily fatigue them. The writer has for some time been observing
the effect of various sorts of playthings upon the activities,
particularly upon the emotions, of two young children. He has noticed
that those plays requiring most accurate co-ordination, as stringing
kindergarten beads with small openings or writing with a hard lead
pencil, will quickly produce fatigue, shown in irritability,
discontent, and lack of control; while those plays which employ the
larger muscles, as working in sand or drawing a cart, are more
enduring in their interest and are not attended by such disagreeable
after effects. It is customary, however, in many homes and schools to
require of the youngest children the finest work in the management of
the smallest tools and materials, such, for instance, as writing on
very narrow spaced paper, greater freedom being permitted in this
respect as the pupil grows older--an inversion of the natural order.
The mode of development of the nervous system indicates unmistakably
that in all training the individual should proceed gradually from the
acquirement of _strength_ and _force_ in large, coarse, and relatively
inexact movements to the acquisition of _skill_ in precisely
co-ordinated activities.
Any reference to the remediable causes of mental fatigue would be
incomplete without allusion to the harmful influence of certain
personal characteristics in the people with whom we associate. By
virtue of a great law of our being, that of suggestion, the importance
of which we are appreciating more fully from day to day, we tend ever
to reproduce within ourselves the activities of the things in our
environment.[51] Now, when we are forced to remain in the presence of
one fatigued, as pupils too frequently are in the school and children
in the home, and this fatigue manifests itself in irritability,
impatience, tension of voice, and constraint of face and body--in such
an environment we become overstimulated ourselves and rapidly waste
our energies. Especially true is this of children, who are more
suggestible than adults; and, in view of this, one can appreciate the
necessity of placing in our schoolrooms, and if we could in our homes,
persons possessing an endowment of nervous energy adequate for the
demands to be made upon it without inducing too readily fatigue with
all its train of evils.
[Footnote 51: _Cf._ Sidis, The Psychology of Suggestion; and
Vernon Lee and C. A. Thompson, Beauty and Ugliness, Contemporary
Review, vol. lxxii, pp. 544-569 and 669-688.]
BEST METHODS OF TAXATION.
BY THE LATE HON. DAVID A. WELLS.
PART II.
In passing from the tariff, or duties on imports, to the internal or
excise taxes imposed by the Federal Government, there is evidently a
distinct change in purpose. However subject to abuse the tax on
distilled spirits has proved, and however frequently its agency has
been invoked to exaggerate the profits of interested parties, there
has never been an open and avowed intention of turning it to private
gain. The policy that has become almost inseparable from the customs
tariff, and is by most people regarded as inherent in all customs
legislation, has not been transferred to the internal revenue taxes
save in one or two instances of recent application and secondary
importance. The danger of permitting taxation to be employed by either
State or Federal Government for a purpose other than that of raising
necessary revenue has been dwelt upon. When a police power is
exercised in conjunction with a tax framed for revenue, and is
regarded as the more important function to be performed, the policy
requires careful examination. If revenue is the real object, the
method of imposing the tax and the determination of the rate which
will give the highest return with the least interference in the
production, distribution, and export of the commodity taxed remains to
be defined. If restriction in manufacture, sale, or consumption is
intended, the question is no longer one of taxation proper, but of
police regulation. The Federal taxes on oleomargarine, filled cheese,
and mixed flour are of the nature of police inspection, and the tax on
the circulation of State banks, amounting, as it has, to prohibition,
is a still more extreme exercise of the same power. The imposition and
collection of these duties have a penal quality, an intention to
restrict or prohibit the production or sale or use of some article.
They are not properly taxes; they are not a proper application of tax
principles, but have originated, in private interest, or in the
deliberate intention to constitute a monopoly, State or other.
The approach of war, or its actual presence, is made the excuse of an
extension of taxes, and the Federal Government tacitly admits its
inability to increase indirect taxes on consumption by its general
resort to an extension of the internal taxes and excise. The
instrumentalities of business offer a fair field for stamp taxes, and
these, when not so burdensome as to invite evasion, are acceptable
because of the ease with which they are assessed and collected. A
specific duty on the more important acts of commerce and daily
business may be evaded, it is true, but not when the paper or
instrument taxed must become public evidence. Stamps of small
denomination on bonds, debentures, or certificates of stock and of
indebtedness; on a bill of sale or memorandum to sell; on bank checks,
drafts, or certificates of deposit; bills of exchange, draft, or
promissory note; money orders and bills of lading; on express and
freight receipts, on telegraph messages, and a large number of legal
and other instruments, such as leases, mortgages, charter party,
insurance policies--these are simple duties, productive of large
returns, and not unequal in their weight. The law of 1898 included
such stamp taxes, as well as others on proprietary articles and wines.
It was not simple to predict the incidence of these rates, and the
distribution has been unequal. The charges of one cent on telegraph
messages and express packages are paid by the sender in the larger
number of cases, the companies merely adding a penny to their rates.
This was not the intention of the law, and the courts have held that
it was not so intended. The individual is powerless in a few
transactions, and only the great concerns are able to avail themselves
of this decision. The duties for seats or berths in a parlor car or
for proprietary medicines, are paid by the company or manufacturer,
though in certain preparations the price to the consumer was advanced
on the passage of the act. With all their drawbacks, and they are not
few in number, these stamp duties afford a ready means of obtaining a
good revenue without increasing unduly the general burdens of
taxation. The law of 1898 was modeled after that of 1863, and many of
the rates and descriptions will undoubtedly be incorporated into the
permanent internal revenue system of the country--a measure enforced
by the remarkably unequal returns derived from the customs.
The existing system of internal duties is even more defensible than
the tariff as a source of revenue. Its inequalities, due to the haste
in which the measure was prepared and the inexperience of those who
framed the provisions and fixed upon the rates, are worn away in use,
and where the rates are moderate and are not infected with a penal
quality, the community adapts itself to them, accepting them as a
necessary convenience. In the United States this spirit of
acquiescence is most marked, not only because of a natural patience of
tax burdens, but because of as natural a fear of other untried and
more radical or oppressive measures. The situation of "business" when
a general tariff bill is pending in Congress is one almost of panic,
and the scramble to protect interests or to obtain some special
advantage against rivals has become a scandalous feature of tariff
revision. Except in the instances named, as oleomargarine and filled
cheese, the internal revenue system presents less of a field for such
an exhibition of greed and self-interest; but the spirit duties, and
even the tobacco rates, may be used in such a way as to favor the
large manufacturer against the small concerns, and are to that extent
misused and applied for purposes antagonistic to those properly
pertaining to taxation. In a time of tax revision the suggestions for
new taxes and ideas for changing the old are freely offered, and do
not stop short of absolute prohibition of an industry, of total
destruction of interest. The vagaries of a legislative body under such
suggestions have instilled into the public mind a wholesome fear of
its possible acts and fully explain the timid and uneasy condition of
"business" when a general tax measure is under discussion. Whether it
be the manufacturer or producer seeking protective duties, or the
Granger or Populist asking for taxes of confiscation against capital
and accumulated property, the spirit is the same--a desire to turn
taxation to improper purposes.
The tendency of Federal taxation to turn to taxes on capital and the
instruments of "business"--direct, rather than indirect taxes--found
its most extreme illustration in the income tax of 1894, the
principles of which have already been discussed. It finds a more
moderate and restricted exercise in certain graduated duties under the
act of 1898, and especially in the duties on legacies and distributive
shares of personal property. It was no sentimental or even theoretical
argument based upon the right of inheritance or the inequality of
taxation that led to the adoption of these duties in 1898; it was only
a blind following of the provisions of the earlier act, and the
consciousness that revenue must be had at every cost, and no possible
source of income should be overlooked. Yet the legacy tax is
essentially a tax of democracy and defensible for much the same
reasons as a tax, whether graduated or not, upon income might be.
By the act approved June 13, 1898, entitled "An act to provide ways
and means to meet war expenditures, and for other purposes," the
national Government imposed a tax upon legacies and distributive
shares of personal property. This tax has been one of the features of
the tax law of 1862 (§§ 111-114), but in a much simpler form and in a
form better calculated to produce a revenue. This earlier law imposed
a duty on all legacies exceeding one thousand dollars in amount, but
very properly made a distinction in the rate according to the degree
of connection between the person from whom the property came and the
receiver of the legacy. Thus, lineal issue or lineal ancestor, brother
or sister, should pay at the rate of seventy-five cents for each and
every hundred dollars of the clear value of the interest in the
property. A descendant of a brother or sister of the decedent paid
double this rate; an uncle or an aunt was taxed three dollars for
every one hundred dollars passing; a great-uncle or a great-aunt, four
dollars; and persons in any other degree of collateral consanguinity,
or a stranger, or a body politic or corporate, five dollars. The only
exemption made was in favor of a wife or husband. As only personal
property was intended to be reached, all land and real estate escaped
the duty.
The law of 1898 made important modifications in these rates and manner
of assessing. In the first place, the rates fell only on legacies in
excess of $10,000, a limit ten times larger than that of the law of
1862. The degrees of relationship were the same, the rates were copied
from those of the earlier act, and the same exemption of property
passing between husband and wife was admitted. But the idea of a
progressive tax was ingrafted into the law. Thus, the old rates
applied only to legacies of more than $10,000 and not more than
$25,000. When the property passing was valued between $25,000 and
$100,000 the rates were multiplied by one and a half; between $100,000
and $500,000, they were multiplied by two; between $500,000 and
$1,000,000, they were multiplied by two and a half; and by three when
the property was in excess of $1,000,000. In restricting the tax to
personal property passing by inheritance the measure aims at a crude
means of making the burdens of personal more nearly approach those of
real property. No such consideration controlled the views of those
responsible for the act, and, after all, it offers only a question of
theoretical interest. The inheritance tax collected in many of the
States may have owed their adoption to such an idea, but the United
States, in taking up these duties, merely saw a means of obtaining
revenue without regarding the actual results of the tax on the estates
paying it.
"The inheritance tax in one form or another has come to stay, and new
States are being added every year to the list of those which have
adopted it. Five years ago it was found in only nine States of the
Union--Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware, New York, West Virginia,
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Tennessee, and New Jersey. During the
first half of 1893 Ohio, Maine, California, and Michigan were added to
the list, though the Michigan law was afterward annulled because of an
unusual provision in the State Constitution which was not complied
with. In 1894 Louisiana revived her former tax on foreign heirs;
Minnesota adopted a constitutional amendment permitting a progressive
inheritance tax which has not yet been given effect by the
Legislature; and Ohio added to her collateral inheritance tax a
progressive tax on direct successions. In 1895 progressive inheritance
taxes were adopted in Illinois and Missouri, and an old proportional
tax was revived in Virginia; and last year Iowa adopted in part the
inheritance tax recommendation of her revenue commission."[52]
[Footnote 52: Max West, in North American Review, May, 1897, p.
635.]
The real problems are to be encountered in local taxation. The many
different methods used in the different States, the want of uniformity
in the local divisions of each State, and the extraordinary diversity
in the interpretation or application of tax laws by the courts and
executive authorities of the States have introduced a confusion, to
end which, many would invoke the intervention of the Federal
Government. The haphazard manner in which the laws have been framed
and passed is only the least notable explanation of the variety of
phrase and interpretation to be found. Even were the Federal
Government to establish definitions, and frame rules of uniform
assessment, there would still be room for difference. The customs
tariff is known to be variously applied in the different ports of the
country, and there is greater certainty in the tariff rate than could
be found in a tax resting on the assessed valuation of land, for
example.
The difficulty encountered by France in its attempt to determine the
net income from land for the purposes of taxation carries an important
lesson. Failing to obtain uniformity of appraisement of this net
income under the crude method first employed--of basing it on the
character of soil and nature of cultivation, deducting the expenses of
cultivation--a _cadastre_ was decreed.[53] In this _cadastre_ each
particular piece of property was recorded, with its boundaries, its
manner of cultivation, and its net rental. Begun in 1807, it was not
completed until 1850, and proved of little value, as no provision had
been made for recording the changes in cultivation, rentals, or other
conditions, except those of ownership, buildings, and exemption from
taxes. Instead of proving a successful means to a desired end, it
"turned out to be a stupendous disillusionment." "The experience of
both the western Prussian provinces and of France showed that the
newly constructed _cadastre_ was of considerable service in equalizing
the land tax within a relatively small area, but not as a basis for
alterations in the contingents to be paid by large and widely
separated regions. The officials in charge of the _cadastre_ on the
Rhine, as well as those in France, themselves admitted that any
computation of net income was uncertain; that the coincidence of the
figures obtained by the cadastral computation with the actual net
income could never be assured; that the figures afforded by the
_cadastre_ were rather of the nature of a proportion, while uniformity
of assessment was to be attained rather by observation of the business
transacted than by depending on the figures obtained by
computation."[54] This effort to discover and record the net income
from land was a failure.
[Footnote 53: The word _cadastre_ was derived from the Latin
_capitastrum_, or register of _capita_, _griga_, or units of
territorial taxation into which the Roman provinces were divided
for the purposes of _capitatio terrena_, or land tax. It is of
modern use and is locally found in Louisiana.]
[Footnote 54: Cohn, Science of Finance, p. 477.]
So thorough an experiment, carried through so long a time, and
presenting an example to be avoided, was in fact imitated by Prussia
under a law of 1865. In each division (_Kreis_) was appointed a
commissioner, who was chairman of a committee, the size of which
ranged from four to ten members, according to the size of the
division. One half of this committee was appointed by the
representatives of the division and one half by the central
Government. A number of divisions formed a department, with its
commissioner and committee of similar composition as in the division,
and above all was a central committee, presided over by the Minister
of Finance. The valuation was accomplished in less than four years.
The method was applied only to land employed in agriculture or
forests; a separate law provided for the taxation of buildings and
gardens. In the end the results were no better than those obtained in
France. In either case a plan too refined to work to advantage had
been employed, and, apart from its simplest function, that of making a
general survey of the land and the uses to which it was applied, it
could not advance the theory of a proper land tax. No modification
could make it a better instrument of taxation. The gross income from
land as a taxing basis would involve heavy injustice, and further
supervision by government officers could not do away with the
mechanical difficulties of securing uniformity. The English plan of
making rental value the foundation is more easily applied and gives
better results.
If land be difficult of assessment, personal property offers a very
much more difficult problem. On this particular question this country
has much to learn from the experience of other governments. In Great
Britain a Royal Commission has been making a study of local taxation,
and, in a preliminary report, concludes that an alteration in the law
for the purpose of obtaining a uniform basis of valuation in England
and Wales is a necessary preliminary to any revision of the existing
system of local taxation. It has been already stated that the poor
rate constituted the basis of valuation of property for local rates.
In its development the system has become more complicated. Two
valuations of the same property may be made for raising imperial
taxes--namely, one for the income tax, and one for the land tax. Three
valuations of the same property may be made for raising local
rates--namely, one for the poor rate, one for the county rate, and one
for the borough rate. Here, then, are five different valuations in
activity.
Of these the parish was the first and most important division, having
been introduced in the sixteenth century, when the dissolution of the
monasteries had raised the question of poor relief. It was adopted for
convenience, as the contributions were at first entirely voluntary;
but as the problem of the poor increased in importance, compulsion was
applied, and at the beginning of the seventeenth century, by the acts
of Elizabeth of 1597 and 1601, compulsion was fully established and
the parish adopted as the area for levying rates for the relief of its
poor. It now became necessary to define more specifically the persons
liable for this rate, but the law framed no system by which
assessments were to be made or rates collected. A distinction was made
between the occupier of certain properties (such as lands, houses,
coal mines, or salable underwoods) and an inhabitant of the parish.
The occupier was to be taxed upon the basis of the annual benefit
arising from the property situated in the parish; but the inhabitant
was taxed not in respect to any specified subjects, implying an
intention to tax them upon some other basis. This raised the question
of "ability," and how that question was to be determined. The act said
nothing that could point to personal property, "and it was only on the
ground of his being an inhabitant that any owner of personal property
could be rated for that property, because there was no word in that
statute to include him, except the word inhabitant. Under that
statute, therefore, there was necessarily a distinction between
residents and nonresidents, because the resident would be ratable for
his personalty within the place, the nonresident not. The distinction,
however, under that statute applied only to those kinds of property
which the statute did not specify, for the occupier of lands, houses,
etc., and whatever the statute enumerated, was ratable whether he were
resident or not."[55] And when the judge of assize was asked to give
an opinion he decided that lands should be taxed equally and
indifferently, but an additional tax could be laid on the "personal
visible ability" of the parishioner. Further, "all things which are
real, and a yearly revenue must be taxed to the poor." Yet there were
limitations on this apparently wide interpretation, and as early as
1633 it was only visible properties, both real and personal, of the
inhabitants within the parish, and only within the parish, that could
be taxed. The property to be assessed must be local, visible, and
productive; it must consist only of the surplus left after deducting
debts; it must be rated according to the profit produced; and its
nature must be distinctly specified. "Consequently, such subjects as
wages, pensions, easements, profits derived from labor and talent,
profits from money invested or lent elsewhere, and furniture, were
exempt."
[Footnote 55: Abbott (Chief Justice) in R. _vs._ The Hull Dock
Company, 3 B and C, p. 525.]
The absence of all attempts to tax or value property other than what
was visible and tangible continued to the reign of Queen Anne, when a
single decision of the court pointed to the taxation of the stock in
trade of a tradesman, a decision that does not appear to have been
acted upon. As late as 1775 Lord Mansfield said, "In general, I
believe neither here nor in any other part of the kingdom is personal
property taxed to the poor." At all events, it could not be taxed
unless usage could support it. Toward the end of the century, when
taxation for the Napoleonic wars was touching more intimately the
concerns of the people, the idea of subjecting personal property to
the poor rate was favored, but nearly half a century passed before it
attracted attention. In their report for 1843 on local taxation the
poor-law commissioners gave the following summary of the status of
this question:
"The practice of rating stock in trade never prevailed in the greater
part of England and Wales. It was, with comparatively few exceptions,
confined to the old clothing districts of the south and west of
England. It gained ground just as the stock of the wool staplers and
clothiers increased, so as to make it an object with the farmers and
other rate payers, who still constituted a majority in their parishes,
to bring so considerable a property within the rate. They succeeded by
degrees, and there followed upon their success a more improvident
practice in giving relief than had ever prevailed before in
England.... When the practice of rating stock in trade was fully
established in this district, the ancient staple trade rapidly
declined there and withdrew itself still more rapidly into the
northern clothing districts, where no such burden was ever cast upon
the trade."
A final determination of the question was imposed upon Parliament by
the pressure of the manufacturing and commercial classes arising from
a decision in the case of R. _vs._ Lumsdaine, in 1839, looking to the
taxation of personal property. In consequence, an act was passed (3
and 4 Vict., c. 89), and has remained in force until the present time,
exempting an inhabitant from any tax "in respect of his ability
derived from the profits of stock in trade or any other property, for
or toward the relief of the poor." Thus it is that the English local
taxation has managed to keep clear from the bog of assessing personal
property, and the annual value of immovable property, such as lands
and houses, within the parish has come to be selected as the simplest
and most practicable basis for assessments. The history is of high
importance, because the basis of the poor rate was adopted as the
basis for all other rates levied in local taxation. Whatever confusion
has been introduced has arisen from other causes, such as the
constituting poor-law unions containing more than one parish, the
levying of county rates, a county having a boundary other than a
parish or a union, and the assessing for rates by parish officers who
acted independently of each other. Many efforts have been made to
introduce a uniform system of assessment, but without success. One of
the clearest thinkers on this subject was Sir George Cornewall Lewis.
In appearing before a committee on taxation, in 1850, he said: "We
have never recognized the principle of having one valuation for all
the different rates. If that principle were once admitted, the
inducement to have an accurate and complete valuation would be at its
maximum, because then you would know that whatever charge might be
imposed it would be imposed upon that valuation, whereas if there is
one assessment for one rate and another assessment for another rate,
and an amended assessment for a third rate, no one cares much about
making any assessment perfect. This is one defect of the present
system of valuation."
The defect has persisted and become more aggravated each year. In 1870
a special commission came to the resolution that "the great variety of
rates levied by different authorities, even in the same area, on
different assessments, with different deductions and by different
collectors, has produced great confusion and expense; and that in any
change of the law as regards local taxation, uniformity and simplicity
of assessment and collection, as well as of economy of management,
ought to be secured as far as possible." When it is considered that
for the five independent valuations for raising rates on property
there are in England and Wales more than one thousand valuation
authorities, the hopelessness of obtaining uniformity is apparent.
With such a multiplicity of agents it is useless to look for good
results. There is no fixed or necessary time for making the valuation
lists; no uniform system of or scale for making deductions for
arriving at the ratable values of certain classes of property;
exemptions and allowances are said to be given unduly, through undue
pressure on the assessing authorities; and the assessment committees
have no statutory power to ascertain from owners or occupiers the
rentals and other particulars needed to determine values. The reforms
needed are a geographical redistribution of taxing limits and uniform
rules of assessments.
If so great confusion can occur where the property to be valued for
taxation is visible and tangible property, and where the principles
underlying the assessment are few and comparatively simple, what is to
be expected when the attempt to reach invisible and intangible
property is added?
Constitutional provisions have not secured equality of valuation, and
the statute laws are powerless to make effective the sounding phrases
of the Constitutions. "Property shall be assessed for taxes," says the
Constitution of New Jersey, "under general laws and by uniform rules,
according to true value." The Assembly sought to embody this principle
or rule in the laws of the State. "All real and personal estate within
this State, whether owned by individuals or corporations, shall be
liable to taxation at the full and actual value thereof, on the day in
each year when by law the assessment is to commence."[56] Such
assertions of the basis of taxation need no further explanation, for
the intention of the framers of constitution and law is
unmistakable--equal and uniform taxation, a common burden involving a
common obligation to discharge it. The practice at once creates the
necessity for recognizing the inaptitude of the instruments called
upon to carry the law into execution. More than four hundred separate
assessors and boards of assessors determine the taxable values upon no
uniform system and in defiance of law and Constitution. "In practice
they value real estate all the way from twenty-five to seventy-five
per cent of its true value, depending on its location, income, etc.,
and their personal or political prejudices, and value different
contiguous areas at different valuations, though of equal values
really; and as to personal property, I regret to say, they appear to
make no earnest or honest effort to reach it anywhere, except in the
agricultural districts, and even there very imperfectly."[57]
[Footnote 56: General Statutes of New Jersey, p. 3929, section
62.]
[Footnote 57: James F. Rusling, in the New Jersey report of
1897.]
Enough has been said in these articles to show that this defect of
method is not peculiar to one State, but is to be found in all. The
remedies proposed or adopted have proved ineffectual to produce a
better result. It is asserted that the more careful selection of the
assessors, a higher salary for service, and a more strict
accountability for their acts would introduce a reform; but this
could, even under the most favorable of conditions, be only a partial
reform. A State assessor with power to remove the assessors has been
recommended, but this officer could not become so conversant with
conditions throughout the State as to be able to decide on the many
questions of assessments coming before him. Certain descriptions of
property could be dealt with by such an officer and with an approach
to fair and equal treatment. The valuation of the "main stem" of the
New Jersey roads was made by civil engineers, and it is believed to
have met the constitutional provision as to "true value." In the
valuation of a vast quantity of other property no such expert
knowledge could be applied, and especially is this true as to
"personal property." Real estate might be approximately valued and a
_cadastre_ or record prepared, but after twelve months the most
carefully compiled valuation would be out of date. Before personal
property the assessor would still stand powerless. No multiplication
of officers or no system of control over the many local assessors can
solve this question in a manner satisfactory to justice to both State
and taxpayer.
It would seem, then, as if an abandonment of what has been regarded as
almost essential features of the State tax systems alone offers
relief. No such abandonment can be effected unless an adequate revenue
from other sources be provided. The "general property tax," with its
futile and laughable incompetency to reach the most profitable sources
of revenue, should be modified, and even eliminated as far as is
possible. The general principle underlying it, of taxing every form of
property, was suited only to a time when the bulk of a man's estate
consisted in visible and tangible objects--lands, houses, live stock,
and furniture. With every creation of a credit instrument, with the
immense development of corporations, the principle has become weaker,
until it now stands confessedly inapplicable to at least four fifths
of the personal property in existence, and this proportion grows
larger each year.
PHASES OF PRACTICAL PHILANTHROPY.
BY HARRIET A. TOWNSEND.
The annual reports of the "Conference of Charities and Corrections"
indicate a growing interest in the study of scientific philanthropy.
That there has been marvelous progress in methods of charitable work
during the past decade no one will deny, but, gratifying as this is
(or appears to be on the surface), we find a somewhat discouraging
feature in the tendency of the present to multiply institutions, to
inaugurate new and extravagant enterprises where theories may be
proved, and which threaten to become burdensome to a generous public
and to absorb energy in the financial struggle to maintain them which
is sorely needed for the more vital issues of the work. The purpose of
this article is to give information about simple and practical efforts
which have met the test of usefulness and are worthy of imitation.
They are being used in four different lines--namely, protection,
education, domestic training, and employment.
PROTECTION.--The first protective agency was organized in New York
city in 1864; it is truly an American idea, and before that date no
organization of its kind had been known in England or on the European
continent.
As a result of the civil war many women were thrown upon their own
resources, with children to support, and much suffering was endured in
the effort to obtain adequate compensation for labor performed. The
objects of the parent protective association--"to secure justice for
women and children, to give legal advice free of charge, and to extend
moral support to the wronged and helpless"--appealed forcibly to
practical philanthropists, and there now exist similar agencies in
many other large cities in America, such as Boston, Philadelphia,
Chicago, Buffalo, and San Francisco. The women's educational and
industrial unions, which work "to increase fellowship among women in
order to promote the best practical methods for securing their
educational, industrial, and social advancement," have all adopted the
protective work as an important branch of their endeavor. To give
detailed statistics of all that has been accomplished in this line
since 1864 would be impossible; indeed, so much of the work is of a
private nature which can never be revealed that one must "read between
the lines" of the annual reports; suffice it to say that by the
protective department of one women's union during a period of fourteen
years more than twelve thousand dollars unjustly withheld from working
women (mostly in small sums) has been collected, police matrons
appointed in three local stations, women given places on public
boards, a law passed compelling the appointment of women physicians in
all the State insane hospitals, and a law making the guardianship of
the mother equal to that of the father (passed by the State
Legislature without a single negative vote). All this has been done
with little expenditure of money, but through the wise effort of
courageous men and women whose service has been rendered not for
charity alone, but in the cause of justice, "that each should have
what he has justly earned is the first necessity of social life."
One province of the protective work is to endeavor to make more clear
the obligation of the employer and employee, and especially in the
domain of household service to place the relation on a commercial
basis. The problem of unskilled labor in the home is the principal
difficulty in the way of such reform, and until the household economic
and kindred associations shall bear more fruit it may prove an
insurmountable barrier to complete success. During the last ten years
the attention of the humanitarian has been frequently called to the
injustice of our laws regulating the "age of consent." In some States
the age has been raised to sixteen or eighteen years and penalties
increased, but through widespread ignorance of the law it is often a
dead letter in both small towns and large cities. A law so constantly
broken and with impunity provides little protection for the young of
both sexes, in whose interest it is framed, and it is a _dead_ letter
because of the indifference of the public. To spread abroad a
knowledge of and help to enforce these laws, which so intimately
affect the purity of the home, is worthy the consecrated effort of the
noblest and most cultivated women in our land. For this and other like
ends the number of protective agencies should be largely increased. In
every town, or at least in every county, such an association might be
formed. There are only required a few women with brave hearts and
clear heads, willing to give one afternoon or evening a week, the free
services of one or more able lawyers (which will never be found
lacking), a small room for a meeting place, and the work can begin.
Let notice be given through the press or in the churches that a
protective agency is formed and stands ready to offer sympathy and
advice to all women in need. Methods of work are very simple: printed
blanks are important to properly record the cases, and letterheads
which shall give names of committee and those of the attorneys; when a
claim for wages is presented, a courteous letter stating the fact that
the wage-earner has asked the assistance of the protective agency, and
requesting the defendant to answer personally or by letter and to
state his side of the case, will generally receive response; great
care must be observed to be just to both parties, and not to make
hasty nor unwarrantable decisions.
The laws affecting the rights and property of women of New York have
been briefly compiled for the use of protective associations, and it
is very easy to obtain in any State a copy of the laws regulating
domestic service for reference in making decisions. The Legal Status
of Women, compiled by Jessie J. Cassidy (a graduate of Cornell), will
be found useful. If in the beginning the work of protection should be
misunderstood and resented it matters not; in time it will win the
respect and co-operation of the best elements in any community. What a
moral force would an "endless chain" of such workers prove in the
struggle for universal brotherhood! To give courage to the most humble
beginning we have the word of our philosopher that "every reform was
once a private opinion."
DOMESTIC TRAINING.--Scientific domestic training or household science
is becoming a subject of great interest to all who believe that a
truer development of home life lies at the foundation of all social
and moral progress.
Three large institutions--Pratt, of Brooklyn; Drexel, of Philadelphia;
and the College of Teachers, in New York city--present opportunities
for the thorough training of teachers in this comparatively new branch
of popular education.
Clubs for the study of household economics are multiplying year by
year; the Association of Collegiate Alumnæ has given earnest thought
to the domestic problem, and as a result, and in spite of much
prejudice, courses of cookery have been made a part of the
public-school curriculum in a few of our large cities. The Board of
Regents of New York State has recently adopted a syllabus for a course
in home science to be used in the high schools. While the movement, as
yet, may be said to be in the experimental stage, it is safe to assert
that sentiment in favor of the new idea is increasing. The
difficulties in the way of a rapid growth are formidable and make the
outlook somewhat discouraging.
To properly equip a school for scientific domestic training is in the
beginning a considerable expense; the number of skilled teachers ready
for the field is small, and their services too valuable to be given
without adequate compensation. The cooking schools so far established
have not proved self-sustaining, and until more sensible ideas as to
the dignity of household labor shall prevail, limitations will
continue.
In all reforms we must "dig at the roots" if we would insure a steady
and healthful growth. The kitchen-garden idea, originated by Miss
Emily Huntington in 1887 for "the purpose of giving the little
daughters of the poor attractive instruction in housework," has proved
one of the best means of practical philanthropy ever discovered. The
New York Kitchen-Garden Association was formed in 1880, and from that,
as its crowning work, we have the New York Training School for
Teachers. The kitchen-garden lessons are very simple; they include how
to make beds and take care of sleeping rooms, set and wait on table,
wash and iron clothes, care of a baby and the nursery, how to build
fires, clean lamps, sweep and dust, instruction in house-cleaning,
marketing, and the care of the person--all taught by miniature
utensils to the accompaniment of songs and exercises, which give
enthusiasm and variety to the work. The training of the kitchen-garden
teacher is not difficult, and young women in any community, by a few
lessons as to the methods and a study of kitchen-garden literature,
may soon become efficient.
Children of the ages of from five to eleven are eligible for the
training, and both girls and boys enjoy the classes. After the
various lessons have been mastered, the next step for girls is into
the cooking class, and if on account of the expense or for any other
reason the scientific teacher is _not_ available, the courses may be
given by housekeepers. Very practical results were thus obtained by
one organization of women. A class of fourteen young girls graduated
from a kitchen garden were given instruction for twenty weeks on every
Saturday morning; the lessons were divided into four short courses;
five each were given in the preparation of breakfast, luncheon,
dinner, and supper. Every fifth morning was devoted to a practice
lesson, when the little cooks prepared and served a meal without
assistance.
While the number of kitchen gardens is increasing there are yet many
localities where the good seed has not taken root; no better work in
village or town could enlist the faithful service of King's Daughters
or of societies for Christian Endeavor. An inexpensive outfit of
kitchen-garden utensils can easily be procured and the work begun.
When a class is ready to graduate from the kitchen garden the
voluntary service of half a dozen notable housekeepers, who will give
the simple lessons in cooking once a week, will yield a most
satisfactory harvest. The unconscious tuition of the cultivated house
mother is often of greater value than all else. A little girl of
eleven years given such opportunities enthusiastically exclaimed,
"I've taught my mother how to make bread!" The mother, a peasant woman
from across the sea, had passed her childhood and youth in the fields,
and, like many of her class, had received no training for the
responsibilities of motherhood. To the large number of foreigners, who
are constantly seeking homes in our free land, the privileges of the
kitchen garden and the free cooking school would prove an inestimable
blessing. When housework shall take its proper place among the
professions, the chaos which now abounds in a majority of American
homes will be forever banished. In home making, regarded as one of the
noblest objects of every woman's life--in fact, _the_ object whenever
possible--lies the hope of the future. To this end God speed the
kitchen garden and the cooking school!
EDUCATION.--The public school and kindergarten, free libraries, art
galleries and museums, cheap literature, and compulsory education laws
would seem, to the casual observer, to leave little need for the
philanthropist in the field of education. A philosopher of to-day
looks forward to the time when "the object of all free education shall
be the emancipation of the individual," and to the time "when general
education shall be supplemented by special schools for the special
vocations of life."
The trend of the present system of education may be in that direction
and the prospect more or less hopeful, but that the schools and other
opportunities mentioned do not now reach all who need instruction is
demonstrated by the success of the various clubs, classes, and
lectures which form so important a part of the humanitarian
associations of to-day. Everywhere are found men and women of middle
age who can not read or write, who were denied even a common-school
education in youth; to reach such as these and make them not ashamed
to accept and make use of the privileges for which they have secretly
longed is practical philanthropy. Among the foreign-born population
many children are early forced to help earn the necessities of life,
and are taken from school as soon as the law will allow.
The college settlements have already accomplished much for this class,
but their work has been confined to thickly settled districts in large
communities. The story of The Abandoned Farm in New England is
familiar, and bears its own pertinent lesson. Because of the
opportunities for education, entertainment, and varied employment
which the large city offers, the young people desert the farm, home
ties are broken, and many lives ruined. Of the low ideals which
prevail in many country districts there are striking illustrations.
A bright woman sojourning for a winter in a small town found that
there were two hotels or taverns where liquor was sold, two churches
where only occasional services were held, a single school-house kept
open during the winter months, no hall except the ballrooms of the
hotels (used only for dancing), no library, and no entertainments of a
literary order. This woman organized a club or debating society, and
after a few months of careful guidance she allowed the members to
select their own topic for the last meeting of the season; to her
great surprise, a debate was announced on the subject, "Whether it is
better for a young man upon coming of age to have one thousand dollars
or a good education." The majority decided that it would be better to
have the money, because he could then speculate and gain a fortune!
What better missionary work could be done in behalf of education than
to establish a "thought center" in every farming region or small town?
The system of traveling libraries, a recent and encouraging movement,
makes it possible (in some States) to place the best books and current
literature in the homes of the farmers and of the inhabitants of the
smallest towns. The books can be obtained, made use of, and exchanged
for others, so that the interest may be perpetuated; the conditions
are not difficult, and the fact that a room or rooms must be provided
for the safe keeping and the circulation of the library is important.
A traveling library once secured, a "thought center" is established.
Lectures, clubs, and classes will follow; they are a natural sequence.
In addition to literary topics, talks on personal purity, physical
culture (respect for the body as the temple of the soul), and on home
ideals (plain living and high thinking) may be given. Good men and
women, fitted to speak well on these subjects, will be ready to give
their services. Where enthusiasm is once aroused, seed can be sown by
such nonsectarian gatherings which fails to take root in the churches.
We are taught that the highest authority within man is the conscience.
Rosenkranz, in his Philosophy of Education, gives this fine definition
of conscience: "Conscience is the criticism which the ideal self makes
on the realized self." To discover and quicken the ideal self wherever
possible is one of the noblest aims of practical philanthropy.
EMPLOYMENT.--A recent report of the United States Labor Commissioner,
Hon. Carroll D. Wright, states that the number of women laborers is
increasing, but that women are more generally taking the places of
children than of men; that the encroachment of women upon the
occupations held by men is so far very slight, and only in conditions
where women are better adapted for the particular work in which they
are employed.
"Women," he says, "are considered by many employers to be more
reliable, more easily controlled, neater, more rapid, industrious,
polite and careful, and less liable to strike than men. Wyoming and
Utah are cited as the only States which have laws according to men and
women equal wages for equal work. There is still much economic
injustice as to compensation for women's work, although some progress
has been made within the last few years."
The agitation of the question of "equal pay for equal work," if it has
not as yet accomplished much for the woman wage-earner, has at least
revealed the fact that women as a class are not as well trained for
the work they attempt as men. The number of unskilled women in all
branches of trade presents a problem which may well engage the
attention of the philanthropist. The necessity of earning to "keep the
wolf from the door," the pleasure resulting from financial
independence, and a desire to add to "pin money" have all tended to
increase the number of girls and women who are seeking employment
outside the home. The fever has extended to the smaller towns, and
even to the farmers' wives and daughters, until the supply greatly
exceeds the demand in many localities, and the women really in need
are often crowded to the wall in this inadequate race. In the passing
of old ideas as to the proper status of woman much good has been
evolved; it is no longer considered degrading to earn one's living,
and the woman worker in every field is winning her way to the respect
and recognition which she deserves.
What can be done to raise the standard of woman's work, to give more
thorough training in vocations for which women are best fitted, to
dignify important occupations which suffer from the lack of skilled
service and which are not overcrowded because of mistaken ideas, and,
above all, to make women ashamed to receive compensation which they do
not fully earn?
The employment bureaus connected with the various organizations of
women are endeavoring to answer these questions. Their object, as
outlined, is to advise and adopt such methods as shall best assist
women in their chosen vocations; to also provide a bureau of
registration where applications can be received and information given.
A committee of practical women supervises the work and endeavors not
only to secure temporary positions, but to confer permanent benefits
on those who seek their aid. The applicants usually include
stenographers, typewriters, copyists, clerks, governesses, matrons,
nurses, housekeepers, seamstresses, laundresses, cooks, and
housemaids. It is the rule, and not the exception, to find a girl or
woman _specially_ fitted for the position she seeks. The majority are
not fitted even to do _one_ thing well, and the ignorance and
assumption shown are appalling.
To discover latent ability, to stimulate the desire to excel, to
explain the rights of the employer and employee, and the moral
obligations of both, is a part of the privilege of the women who give
time and thought to the employment problem.
The Boston Women's Educational and Industrial Union has been able to
render excellent service by the distribution of circulars cautioning
women against advertisements which offer large returns for work done
at home. Its list of fraudulent firms, obtained by thorough
investigation, has been sent to other associations, and has already
proved of inestimable value to many women who would otherwise have
been tempted to send money, allured by the attractive advertisements.
The list compiled gives the names of one hundred firms which are a
"delusion and a snare," and which, on account of some trifling
technicality, the law seems unable to touch.
To exalt the home and raise the standard of domestic service is
another important object--perhaps the most important of all. From the
ordinary intelligence office to the employment bureau under the
guidance of educated women is a long step for progress.
In all humane effort, the more scientific the methods employed the
better will be the results. According to Charles Kingsley, "scientific
method needs no definition--it is simply the exercise of common
sense."
HERBERT SPENCER AT SEVENTY-NINE.
The portrait of Herbert Spencer, which forms the frontispiece to this
number of the Monthly, is from a photograph taken soon after he
reached the age of seventy-eight. Though of late years his health has
been unusually feeble, this is scarcely reflected in the face, which
still retains in a marked degree the expression of intellectual
strength that was so characteristic of his prime.
About the time Mr. Spencer completed the Synthetic Philosophy, or, as
it is better known, the Philosophy of Evolution, with the publication
of the third volume of the Principles of Sociology, we gave an account
of The Man and his Work, from the pen of Prof. William H. Hudson, who
had for a number of years acted as his secretary, and was so familiar
with his thought that he afterward published an Introduction to the
Philosophy, which Mr. Spencer himself has cordially commended. It was
naturally supposed by his many friends that having practically carried
out his original plan as laid down in his prospectus thirty-six years
before, Mr. Spencer would throw off the cares and vexations of
authorship, to enjoy the rest and relaxation that his arduous and
long-continued labors had earned. But this, it seems, he was not
inclined to do. Apparently as active intellectually as ever, he has
kept at work to the full extent of his physical ability, devoting
himself mainly to such additions and modifications of his published
writings as new knowledge and the advance of thought have made
necessary. This persistent industry, unusual, to say the least, in one
so far advanced in life, the presentation of his latest portrait, and
the interest which the world takes in the doings of a man who has so
profoundly influenced the thought of his time, make this a fitting
opportunity to refer to some of the later incidents in his career.
Though never inclined to plume himself on the importance or the
grandeur of his great undertaking, wondering now that he ever had the
"audacity" to begin it, and regarding its completion as more an
"emancipation" than a triumph, Mr. Spencer is nevertheless entitled to
the satisfaction which comes from the contemplation in the evening of
a long life of the fulfillment of the purpose to which that life has
been devoted. Although he speaks of the series of works comprising
the Synthetic Philosophy as "complete yet incomplete," because more
things might have been put into it, Mr. Spencer has the unquestionable
right to look upon his "system" as finished in all the essentials of a
symmetrical and self-sustaining structure; and more than this, he
finds it generally accepted as a masterpiece, embodying, if not all
the truth, yet a fundamental truth manifested in the growth and order
of the universe of matter and mind.
When we regard the comprehensiveness of Mr. Spencer's system,
embracing everything there is, and the multitude of the details that
had to be considered in the course of its preparation, we wonder at
the magnitude of the aggregation that may be formed by the repetition
of small daily tasks. The portions of time he was able to give to work
were at most very brief, and would be regarded by the majority of
workers as insufficient for any great accomplishment; and when the
frequent and sometimes long interruptions that occurred are
considered, seem absolutely insignificant. Yet in these small
fragments of two or three hours a day with many lost days in the year,
and several lost years, one of the greatest works in the history of
the human mind was carried to its end. The old figure of the dropping
of the water on the stone and the fable of the tortoise and the hare
are newly illustrated.
Outside of his work in the composition of the Philosophy, Mr. Spencer
has always taken a vital interest in leading public questions, making
them the subjects of frequent communications to the press, and seeking
the co-operation of others when opportunity offered either in
combating some needless innovation or aiding some important reform.
True to the teaching of his philosophy, it will be observed that in
any attempts of the kind his reliance has always been on the power of
gradual development, rather than abrupt changes by acts of Parliament
or otherwise, to bring about desired conditions. Before his visit to
the United States, in 1882, he interested himself in forming an
Anti-Aggression League, for the purpose of opposing schemes for
extending the lines of British dominion in various parts of the world.
Among his associates in this effort were Mr. John Morley, Mr. Frederic
Harrison, and the Rev. Llewellyn Davis and Canon Fremantle, now Dean
of Ripon, liberal-minded clergymen of the Church of England. The
movement found little public sympathy, and no adequate support. Mr.
Spencer, severely taxing his strength in promoting it, suffered
another breakdown (from which he has never fully recovered), in
consequence of which the next number of his Philosophy--Part VI of the
Principles of Sociology: Ecclesiastical Institutions--did not appear
till the close of 1855. It is worthy of remark in connection with this
incident that it seems to have been left for non-Christians almost
alone in a professedly Christian community to take the advance in
inculcating and disseminating one of the central ideas of the
Christian religion; as now, in the United States, with the orthodox
church people almost unanimous in supporting war and the wildest
schemes of aggression, it has been left for a few New England
Unitarians first to dare to speak in protest against an iniquitous and
perilous crusade for foreign dominion. Mr. Spencer has never neglected
an opportunity to express in unmistakable terms his aversion to
militancy, and has been at great pains to demonstrate, as in his
Sociology, that the true road to all higher development of society is
through encouraging the growth of its industrial factors.
A disposition manifested among English legislators to favor the
passage of acts embodying some of the ideas of the socialists led to
the publication of a series of magazine articles showing the
demoralizing tendencies of measures of paternalism and foreshadowing
the disastrous ultimate results that would ensue from the unnecessary
interference of the state. These were afterward collected and
published under the title of The Man _versus_ the State, and are now
bound up with the revised Social Statics.
From the spring of 1886 till 1889, when conditions of health compelled
entire suspension of the work on the Philosophy, and it was even
doubtful whether it could ever be continued, Mr. Spencer dictated the
larger part of his autobiography. This has since been completed and
put in print, but will not be published during his lifetime. It will
comprise two considerable volumes.
Not finding life in a boarding house in all respects suited to his
wishes, Mr. Spencer for many years entertained the idea of
establishing himself in a home of his own in the suburbs of London,
but had been deterred from so doing by the prospective troubles of
housekeeping. In the summer of 1889, however, after making such
arrangements as promised to relieve him in great measure of these
cares, he finally carried out the idea by taking a house in the
neighborhood of Regent's Park. But though for some years the bachelor
household was a success, we understand it eventually ceased to be so,
though it was continued until Mr. Spencer changed his residence to
Brighton two years ago. There was wanting in those who had immediate
charge of details that feeling of identity of interests and that
disposition to co-operate which belong to the ordinary family, and as
a consequence differences grew up that could not be permanently
composed, and that on the whole did not conduce to domestic
tranquillity.
About the time his housekeeping experience was entered upon, Mr.
Spencer found himself well enough to go on with the composition of
his Philosophy. As he relates in the preface to the Data of Ethics and
to Justice, he had already, ten years before, in the imminent doubt of
ever being able to complete the work as it had been laid out,
determined to devote his attention first to the end and ultimate
object of the system--to that part of it to which all the rest was
intended to lead up; the purpose, "lying behind all proximate
purposes," of finding a scientific basis for the principles of right
and wrong in conduct at large. When, now, the question arose again of
what work to undertake first, completion of the Principles of Ethics
was at once decided upon. As it was still doubtful whether he would be
able to accomplish even this, he took up the part which seemed most
important--Justice. This was published as Part IV of the Ethics in the
summer of 1891. No further serious interruptions occurred in the
execution of the work. Parts II and III, completing the first volume
of the Ethics, were finished in the spring of 1892; and a year
afterward Parts V and VI were added, forming, with Justice, the second
volume.
The ethical part of the Philosophy as contemplated by Mr. Spencer
having been completed, only two divisions remained to be worked
out--Professional Institutions and Industrial Institutions, parts of
the Principles of Sociology--to fill out the whole plan. A subsidiary
discussion of considerable importance for the integrity of the theory
of evolution now intervened to be disposed of before these parts of
the work could be proceeded with. Prof. August Weismann had published
a book in which he denied the transmission of acquired characters; or,
as Mr. Spencer would word it, the transmission of functionally-wrought
modifications--a very vital point in all Mr. Spencer's philosophy. Mr.
Spencer took the matter up at once, and published several incisive
essays refuting Professor Weismann's positions. He opened his argument
against the neo-Darwinian position with essays on the Inadequacy of
Natural Selection, and on Professor Weismann's Theories, and followed
them, at intervals of a few months, with the additional articles, A
Rejoinder to Professor Weismann, and Weismannism Once More. Anxious
that the question should be brought to the notice of every biologist,
Mr. Spencer had reprints of these essays distributed among the
teachers of the science all over Europe and America.
The work on the final stage of Mr. Spencer's great undertaking was
begun about the middle of 1894. The reading of an editorial in the
Popular Science Monthly having suggested to him that it would be
desirable to do so, he published the chapters on Professional
Institutions--serially in this periodical and in the Contemporary
Review. The chapters on Industrial Institutions did not appear till
the third volume of the Sociology was issued in November, 1896--the
volume which was the culmination of the work so persistently
prosecuted in the face of the most formidable and even seemingly
hopeless difficulties. In these departments of the system, the
argument was pursued, consistent with that which prevails in all the
other departments, that in the professions and the industries the
principle of evolution operates just as surely and completely as in
the derivation of an animal species from its ancestral form.
Appreciation of the value of Mr. Spencer's work had been growing for
many years, and its influence was gradually making itself felt in
movements of various kinds in the active world. Whatever he wrote or
said received attention at once, was discussed, or influenced action.
The completion of his Philosophy was deemed worthy of formal notice
and a proper subject for felicitation wherever science was known, and
in England was regarded as a suitable object for a national memorial.
An address of congratulation was prepared for presentation to him, and
with it went a request that he would have his portrait painted to be
presented to the nation. It has always been his principle to decline
offers of testimonials, on the ground that the custom had become an
abuse, and persons invited to participate in presentations were often
put under a kind of moral obligation to comply, to which he would not
be, even incidentally, a party. Consistently with this attitude and
not realizing the real nature of the movement in favor of a
testimonial and how really spontaneous it was, he wrote to its
promoters repeating his objections and asking that it be not pressed.
But when the address was presented and he saw the list of illustrious
names attached to it, including those of men who had been his
antagonists, he yielded to what was evidently a spontaneous feeling of
the representative men among his countrymen, and sat for his portrait
as soon as circumstances permitted, or about a year afterward, to Mr.
Hubert Herkomer. The following is the letter of congratulation and the
request for his portrait, with the names of the distinguished signers,
and Mr. Spencer's reply:
THE CAMP, SUNNINGDALE, _December 16, 1896_.
DEAR SIR: We, the undersigned, offer you our cordial
congratulations upon the completion of your System of Synthetic
Philosophy.
Not all of us agreeing in equal measure with its conclusions, we
are all at one in our estimate of the great intellectual powers it
exhibits and of the immense effect it has produced in the history of
thought; nor are we less impressed by the high moral qualities which
have enabled you to concentrate those powers for so many years upon
a purpose worthy of them, and, in spite of all obstacles, to carry
out so vast a design.
To the many who, like us, have learned to honor the man while
profiting by his writings, it would be a satisfaction to possess an
authentic personal likeness of the author. It has therefore occurred
to us that the occasion might be appropriately marked by requesting
you to permit us to employ some eminent artist to take your
portrait, with a view, to its being deposited in one of our national
collections for the benefit of ourselves and of those who come after
us.
We hope that your health may be benefited by the leisure which
you have earned so well, and that you may long continue to enjoy the
consciousness of having completed your work.
W. DE W. ABNEY, R. E., C. B., D. C. L., F. R. S., Pres. Physical
Society.
ROBERT ADAMSON, M. A., LL. D., Prof, of Logic, Glasgow
University.
GRANT ALLEN, B. A.
ALEXANDER BAIN, M. A., LL. D., Professor of Logic, Aberdeen
University.
SIR GEORGE S. BADEN-POWELL, K. C. M. G., M. A., M. P.
RIGHT HON. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR, P. C., D. C. L., F. R. S., M. P.
SIR ROBERT STAWELL BALL, LL. D., F. R. S., Lowndean Prof. Ast.,
Camb.
H. CHARLTON BASTIAN, M. A., M. D., F. R. S., Prof. Medicine,
Univ. Coll., London.
FRANK E. BEDDARD, M. A., F. R. S., Prosector Zoölogical Society.
JOHN BEDDOE, M. D., F. R. S.
SIR WALTER BESANT, M. A.
E. W. BRABROOK, Pres. Anthropological Institute.
BERNARD BOSANQUET, M. A.
C. V. BOYS, F. R. S., Assistant Prof. Physics R. C. S.
T. LAUDER BRUNTON, M. D., D. Sc., F. R. S.
EDWARD CLODD.
F. HOWARD COLLINS.
SIR J. CRICHTON-BROWNE, M. D., LL. D., F. R. S.
W. H. DALLINGER, LL. D., D. Sc., F. R. S.
FRANCIS DARWIN, M. A., M. B., F. R. S.
GEORGE H. DARWIN, M. A., LL. D., F. R. S., Plumian Prof. Ast. and
Exp. Physics, Cambridge.
W. E. DARWIN, B. A.
JAMES DONALDSON, M. A., LL. D., Principal University St. Andrews.
RIGHT HON. SIR M. E. GRANT-DUFF, P. C., G. C. S. I., F. R. S.
Earl of Dysart.
SIR JOHN EVANS, K. C. B., D. C. L., LL. D., D. Sc., Treas. R. S.
SIR JOSHUA FITCH, LL. D.
MICHAEL FOSTER, M. A., M. D., LL. D., D. C. L., Sec. R. S., Prof.
Physio., Cambridge.
EDWARD FRANKLAND, M. D., D. C. L., LL. D., F. R. S.
RIGHT HON. SIR EDWARD FRY, P. C., LL. D., D. C. L., F. R. S.
SIR DOUGLAS GALTON, K. C. B., D. C. L., LL. D., F. R. S.
FRANCIS GALTON, M. A., D. C. L., D. Sc., F. R. S.
RICHARD GARNETT, LL. D.
SIR GEORGE GROVE, C. B., D. C. L., LL. D.
ALBERT C. L. G. GÜNTHER, M. A., M. D., F. R. S., Pres. Linnean
Society.
FREDERIC HARRISON, M. A.
JAMES EDMUND HARTING.
RIGHT HON. LORD HOBHOUSE, P. C.
HENRY HOBHOUSE, M. A., M. P.
SHADWORTH HODGSON, late Pres. Aristotelian Society.
SIR JOSEPH DALTON HOOKER, K. C. S. I., C. B., M. D., D. C. L.,
LL. D., F. R. S.
WILLIAM HUGGINS, D. C. L., LL. D., F. R. S.
J. HUGHLINGS JACKSON, M. D., LL. D., F. R. S.
WILLIAM KNIGHT, LL. D., Prof. Moral Philosophy, St. Andrews.
ANDREW LANG.
E. RAY LANKESTER, M. A., LL. D., F. R. S., Linacre Prof. Anatomy,
Oxford.
SIR TREVOR LAWRENCE, Pres. Royal Horticultural Society.
W. E. H. LECKY, M. A., LL. D., D. C. L., M. P.
J. NORMAN LOCKYER, C. B., F. R. S., Prof. Astr. Physics, R. C. S.
RIGHT HON. SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, P. C., D. C. L., LL. D., F. R. S.,
M. P.
VERNON LUSHINGTON, Q. C.
P. A. MACMAHON, R. A., F. R. S., late Pres. Math. Society.
JAMES MARTINEAU, D. D., LL. D., D. C. L.
DAVID MASSON, M. A., LL. D., Emeritus Prof. Rhetoric, Edinburgh.
RAPHAEL MELDOLA, F. R. S., Pres. Entomological Society.
C. LLOYD MORGAN, Prin. University Coll., Bristol.
RIGHT HON. JOHN MORLEY, P. C., M. A., LL. D., F. R. S., M. P.
C. HUBERT H. PARRY, Prin. R. Coll. of Music.
GENERAL PITT-RIVERS, D. C. L., F. R. S.
EDWARD B. POULTON, M. A., F. R. S., Prof. Zoöl. Oxford
University.
SIR WILLIAM O. PRIESTLEY, M. D., LL. D., M. P.
LORD REAY, G. C. S. I., G. C. I. E.
LORD RAYLEIGH, M. A., D. C. L., LL. D., F. R. S., Prof. Nat.
Philos. Royal Institution.
DAVID G. RITCHIE, M. A., Professor of Logic St. Andrews
University.
SIR HENRY E. ROSCOE, LL. D., D. C. L., F. R. S.
J. S. BURDON SANDERSON, LL. D., D. C. L., F. R. S., Reg. Prof. of
Medicine Univ. Oxford.
GEORGE H. SAVAGE, M. D., F. R. C. P.
E. A. SCHÄFER, F. R. S., Prof. Physio. Univ. Coll. London.
D. H. SCOTT, M. A., Ph. D., F. R. S., Hon. Keeper Jodrell
Laboratory, Kew.
HENRY SIDGWICK, M. A., Litt. D., D. C. L., Prof. Moral Philos.
Univ. Camb.
W. R. SORLEY, Prof. Moral Philos. Univ. of Aberdeen.
LESLIE STEPHEN, M. A., Litt. D., LL. D.
G. F. STOUT.
JAMES SULLY, M. A., LL. D.
W. T. THISELTON-DYER, C. M. G., C. I. E., M. A., F. R. S.
JOHN VENN, Sc. D., F. R. S.
SYDNEY HOWARD VINES, M. A., D. Sc., F. R. S., Prof. Botany Univ.
Oxford.
SIR WILLOUGHBY WADE, M. D., F. R. C. P.
ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE, D. C. L., F. R. S.
BEATRICE WEBB.
LADY VICTORIA WELBY.
SAMUEL WILKS, M. D., LL. D., F. R. S., Pres. R. College of
Physicians.
HAWARDEN, _November 30, 1896_.
MY DEAR SIR: It has long been my rule to decline joining in
groups of signatures, nor do I think myself entitled to bear a
prominent part in the present case. But I beg that you will, if you
think proper, set me down as an approver of the request to Mr.
Spencer, whose signal abilities and, rarer still, whose manful and
self-denying character, are so justly objects of admiration.
I remain your very faithful,
W. E. GLADSTONE.
F. HOWARD COLLINS, Esq.
2, LEWES-CRESCENT, BRIGHTON, _December 19, 1896_.
MY DEAR HOOKER: If, as may fitly be said, the value of
congratulations increases in a geometrical progression with the
eminence of those offering them, I may, indeed, be extremely
gratified by the accumulation coming from men standing so high in
various spheres. And an accompanying pleasure necessarily results
from the good wishes expressed for my health and happiness during my
remaining days.
The further honor offered has caused in me some mental conflict.
Eight years ago, to the inquiry whether I would sit for a
subscription portrait to be painted by Millais, I replied
negatively, assigning the reasons that the raising of funds to pay
the costs of conferring marks of approbation had grown into an
abuse; that the moral coercion under which contributions were in
many cases obtained was repugnant to me; and that I objected to have
my known and unknown friends asked to tax themselves to the required
extent. These reasons survived, and, swayed by them, I recently sent
a copy of the letter in which they had been stated to the gentleman
with whom the proposal now made originated, thinking thereby to
prevent further trouble. I was unaware to how large an extent the
proposal had been adopted and how distinguished were the numerous
gentlemen who had given it their support. I now find myself obliged
either inconsistently to waive my objection or else rudely to slight
the cordially-expressed feelings and wishes of so many whose
positions and achievements command my great respect. Between the
alternatives there seems to be practically no choice. I am compelled
to yield to the request made in so sympathetic a manner by
signatories so eminent, and at the same time must express to them
through you my full sense of the honor done me.
I am, my dear Hooker, sincerely yours,
HERBERT SPENCER.
Marks of honor offered to Mr. Spencer from time to time since 1871
have included doctor's degrees from the Universities of St. Andrews,
Bologna, Cambridge, Edinburgh, and Buda-Pesth; and elections as
foreign member or correspondent of the Academies of Rome, Turin,
Naples, Paris, Philadelphia, Copenhagen, Brussels, Vienna, Milan, and
the Prussian order "_Pour le Mérite_." Mr. Spencer has been prompted
year after year to decline these various honors by the conviction that
instead of being, as commonly supposed, encouragements to literature
and science, they are discouraging. He contends that they constitute a
system of inverse handicapping. In physical competitions it is usual
to give the younger a certain artificial advantage when they are set
against the elder; but in these mental competitions between the rising
men and the men who have risen the reverse practice is followed--the
men who have risen have an artificial advantage, and the younger men,
who of necessity have much to struggle against, have their
difficulties artificially increased by the absence of titles which
their competitors possess. Mr. Spencer is quite aware that the course
he has persistently followed has cost him much, since a list of honors
on the title-pages of his books would have greatly increased the
attention paid to them by critics and others. Nevertheless, he has
continued to make this practical protest.
Since completing his Philosophy, Mr. Spencer has occupied his working
hours with the revision of the Principles of Biology, making the
modifications and incorporating the new facts which the progress of
the science demands. He recognizes that the advance has been more
rapid in this branch than in any other; and that while it might be
almost hopeless for him at his time of life to bring a work on biology
at large up to date, the case is different in an exposition of the
Principles of Biology. The additions to the work include a chapter on
Metabolism supplementing the discussion of vital changes of matter; a
chapter on the Dynamic Element in Life, to render less inadequate the
conception of life previously expressed; some pages on Structure; an
account, under the head of Cell Life and Cell Multiplication, of the
astonishing actions in cell nuclei which the microscope has revealed;
a further chapter on Genesis, Heredity, and Variation, in which
certain views enunciated in the first edition of the book are
qualified and developed; a review of various modern ideas under the
title of Recent Criticisms and Hypotheses; a rewriting of most of the
chapter on The Argument from Embryology; and a number of changes
incorporated as sections in pre-existing chapters. The articles on
Weissmannism are incorporated in an appendix. In performing this work
assistance was needed, and the author sought and received criticism
and help from different persons, each taking a division falling within
the range of his special studies: Prof. W. H. Perkin in organic
chemistry and its derived subjects; Prof. A. G. Tansley in plant
morphology and physiology; Prof. E. W. MacBride and Mr. J. T.
Cunningham in animal morphology; and Mr. W. B. Hardy in animal
physiology. The first volume of this work, recently published, has
been received with favor by persons of all shades of opinion
respecting the questions it touches. The London Times, in not the
friendliest of criticisms, says that even persons who do not accept
the author's Philosophy will rejoice that he has been able to complete
it, and adds that as it stands it "is a marvel of erudition: every
page exhibits the wealth and variety of illustration for which Mr.
Spencer is justly famous." The latest notice of it that we have
observed, a French one in the _Revue Scientifique_, says that in
consulting it biologists "will not lose their time, and many will find
valuable ideas in it, suggestions by which their experimental work can
not fail to be greatly benefited. And, like us, they will be filled
with admiration for a work so condensed, and at the same time so
admirably co-ordinated, so replete with facts and ideas, of the
philosopher who has exercised so great an influence on the science of
his times, and who is one of the finest intellectual glories of his
country and of the present epoch." Perhaps one of the most significant
of recent testimonials of appreciation of the Synthetic Philosophy is
the announcement of the publication of a complete translation of First
Principles into Japanese by Mr. Fujii, who has devoted several years
to the work. "Mr. Spencer's works," it is added, "have long had a
great attraction for Japanese translators." Mr. Spencer is now engaged
upon the second volume of the Biology.
It was formerly Mr. Spencer's custom to spend about nine months of the
year in London and the three summer months in the country, but for
several years past he has found the fogs and other gloomy winter
conditions of the metropolis too trying. The confinement enforced upon
him by increasing feebleness has, moreover, precluded his enjoyment of
the social privileges, particularly of the Athenæum Club, which were
one of the attractions that made a town residence tolerable. He
therefore, at the beginning of 1898, took up his residence in
Brighton, where he has a house looking upon the sea, and giving him
the benefit of the flood of light which that place enjoys.
At present Mr. Spencer is able to give very little time to work, and
being confined to the house most of the time, the routine of his daily
life admits of little variety. His first business in the day is to
hear the morning paper read; then he attends to his correspondence,
and if well enough does a little work. If any matter is going through
the press he will generally be seen with a proof close by. His
afternoon is spent in such relaxation as is afforded by scanning the
illustrated papers and magazines, listening to music, which must
always be classical, or, if sufficiently well, a drive; and he retires
at ten o'clock.
* * * * *
It is often asked, Miss Mary H. Kingsley says in her West African
Studies, whether Christianity or Mohammedanism is to possess
Africa--"as if the choice of Fate lay between these two religions
alone. I do not think it is so, or at least it is not wise for a
mere student to ignore the other thing in the affair, fetich,
which is, as it were, a sea wherein all things suffer a sea
change. For, remember, it is not Christianity alone that becomes
tinged with fetich, or gets ingulfed and dominated by it. Islam,
when it strikes the true heart of Africa, the great forest belt
region, fares but little better, though it is more recent than
Christianity, and though it is preached by men who know the make
of the African mind."
PRESIDENT CHARLES W. DABNY, Jr., of the University of Tennessee,
once said in an address that when in school, where the work was
all done "at the point of the hickory, so to speak," the best
teacher he had "was the kindly old neighborhood loafer," who
roamed the woods with him, told him of the times of the wild
flowers and the habits of the birds, and taught him to shoot the
long rifle. He followed the "natural method, and showed a pupil
how to do a thing by doing it."
Editor's Table.
_SCIENCE AND THE STATE._
It is probably not too much to say that the true measure of the
intelligence and efficiency of a government is the extent to which, in
the various spheres of activity which it controls, it recognizes the
authority and adopts the methods of science. There is one department
of Government--the remark might be applied to nearly all civilized
governments, and very pointedly to our own--in which science receives
a large and serious recognition, and that is the Navy Department. We
have lately had a striking exhibition, which the world at large has
watched with great interest, of the high state of efficiency to which
a navy can be brought in a comparatively short space of time. If the
question is asked how it was done, there is but one answer: it was
done by recognizing science and working on scientific lines. To work
on scientific lines is simply to study carefully, in the light of the
best available knowledge, the means for accomplishing a desired end,
and having found the best means, to adopt them in practice. Our naval
administration has fortunately been able to repel if not wholly, at
least to a remarkable extent, the intrusion of "political" influence,
and has consequently been able to apply itself without serious
distraction to the accomplishment of its own special tasks. It has
called science to its aid not only as regards purely physical
questions, but as regards questions of organization; and the result is
that it has succeeded in giving the nation not only ships and guns,
but the men who are fitted by knowledge, by training, and by
discipline to make the best possible use of the ships and guns.
Next to the navy in the recognition accorded to science, but yet a
long way off, comes the army. We are speaking now, of course, of our
own army; and what the "long way off" meant in waste of money and of
human life, in the suffering and misery of brave men, is a too
familiar tale. Had science governed the operations of the land forces
and presided over their whole organization to the same extent that it
did over the operations and organization of the navy, a certain recent
page of history would have borne a very different record, and would
not have been so burdened as it is with shame and heartache to
patriotic citizens.
Killing and being killed are serious matters, and everybody
understands that the business can not safely be trifled with. That is
why science is allowed to have its own way almost entirely in the
navy, and to exercise a large measure of control in the army, with the
effect of rendering the first a nearly perfect machine, and giving to
the latter a high degree of efficiency for its own purposes. But have
we not here object lessons which ought to be applied to other
departments of the Government? Is it only in the matter of killing
that the aid of science is required? Can the public at large not rise
to the conception that, if science can make splendid killing machines,
it might also, if allowed fair play, make excellent administrative
machines for peaceful purposes? We have departments which deal with
such important matters as currency and finance, agriculture and
statistics, the administration of justice, the control of railway
traffic, the erection of public buildings and the improvement of
waterways, the carrying out of geodetic and geological surveys, the
representation of the country abroad, the protection of the public
health, and, finally, the great question of public education. It must
be obvious to every thoughtful person that, if science could have its
say and its way in relation to these matters, it would put them all on
the best footing which the existing condition of knowledge permits. It
would ask, "What are the objects to be accomplished?" and would
proceed to select the persons and adopt the means best fitted to
realize those objects. The country would then have a civil service in
which economy and efficiency would be equally conspicuous, and which
would furnish examples for imitation in private enterprise of the best
ways of doing things.
It is needless to say how far removed the present condition of
government business is from anything like scientific organization. If
killing must be done scientifically, the injured feelings of the
politician find relief in insisting that nearly everything else within
the sphere of government action shall be done most unscientifically.
In the filling of important positions the first thing considered is
not the question of fitness for the work to be done, but the question
of party advantage. It is not too much to say that a prejudice
frequently exists against a man conspicuously qualified by knowledge,
experience, and character for a given post. There is an uncomfortable
feeling that such a man might not be sufficiently pliable afterward in
the hands of those who had appointed him--that the preposterous idea
might get into his head that, having obtained the office on his
merits, he was at liberty, in the execution of his duties, to think
only of the public interest. The preference of the politician,
therefore, for "the boys" is easily understood; but "the boys" and
science do not work hand in hand.
Our universities are turning out year by year men possessing the
highest scientific qualifications, men who have studied both in this
country and in Europe, and who are prepared to take any positions in
which scientific work is required. Some of these are absorbed by the
teaching profession, but the great majority find employment in the
various industries of the country. Unfortunately, the attainments of
such men give them no special advantage as regards employment in the
public service of the country; to qualify for that they must graduate
in another school entirely, and get certificates from a very different
class of professors. We are far from holding the opinion that men of
high education should dissociate themselves from the political life of
the country; but it is unhappily true that the kind of interest which
an intelligent man who places the nation above party can take in
politics is not likely to recommend him to those who have the
dispensing of places. The fact should, however, be emphasized that if
science does not receive due recognition in connection with the public
services, it is not because of any lack of native-born citizens
capable of representing it with credit and even with distinction. In
this respect America has placed herself fully abreast with the most
advanced nations of the modern world, and the Government has only to
say what service it requires in order to have its choice of men
possessing every qualification to render that service in the most
competent and satisfactory manner.
In the last resort, it must be admitted, the fault rests with
the people. It is with reluctance that the average elector
acknowledges--if he can be brought to acknowledge at all--that any
public office requires special qualifications. Such an idea seems to
be at war with true democratic doctrine, and to imply a serious
abridgment of the powers of the people's representatives. It is
readily conceded that private industries and enterprises of all kinds
call for training and experience and special knowledge on the part of
those who conduct them; but Government business is supposed to be so
simple that a wayfaring man, though a pronounced fool, need not err
therein. There is more or less hypocrisy, however, in the pretension.
The real underlying thought is that, outside of the two great killing
departments, no very serious harm can be done by official
incompetence, and that the great thing is to provide for "the boys."
No idea could be more false. The evil that can be done by unwise
economic measures, for example, is incalculable. The army and navy are
brought into action only when the dogs of war have been let loose; but
the influence of the civil departments of the Government acts
unceasingly, and touches the life of the people at a thousand points.
In the matter of public education science has never had the
recognition to which it is entitled; nor will it have until the people
as a whole know better what science is--until they cease to think of
it as a thing of mysteries and technicalities, and come to understand
that it is simply the organization of knowledge and the rendering of
it available for guidance in the business of life. Meantime, wherever
circumstances are favorable, the education of the young, even of the
youngest, should be given as far as possible a scientific character.
We are strongly inclined to the opinion that, in a country whose
fundamental industry is agriculture, an effort should be made in all
schools to impart a few sound elementary ideas as to the principles of
agriculture. What better starting point could there be for scientific
instruction than the soil out of which we derive, mediately or
immediately, all that goes to sustain life? It seems to us that no
human being should be permitted to be wholly ignorant of the
conditions upon which the successful cultivation of the soil depends,
and we are persuaded that the subject might, by proper treatment, be
made deeply interesting to the vast majority of school children.
A prominent Englishman, Mr. Boyd-Kinnear, has lately been discussing
this matter in a London paper. He points out that a knowledge of the
scientific principles of agriculture is of fundamental importance, and
that whatever else is taught in the national schools, the sciences on
which farming rests--physics, chemistry, mechanics, and the physiology
of plants and animals--should hold a principal place. He observes that
in order to know agriculture it is necessary to understand, first of
all, the elements and the action of the soil and the air. There is
urgent need, he contends, for teaching what is known on these subjects
and for pursuing research into the much larger field of the unknown.
In these remarks we entirely concur, and we believe that it would be a
happy thing for this country, and for every country, if education
could be so administered that, instead of tending, as it so often
does, to separate human beings from the soil, it should tend to
establish in their minds a sense of their dependence on it and an
intelligent, if possible a loving, interest in the operations by which
the living of the world is won and the face of Nature is beautified.
Here, as we conceive, is where scientific teaching should begin. Such
a system of instruction would do much more than increase the
intelligence of the farming community, though that would be a benefit
of the first magnitude; it would so transform public opinion in
general that the divorce we now see between science and the State
would no longer be possible. The whole national life would be placed
on a sounder basis; and it would probably be found that the result of
doing other things scientifically was to diminish very greatly the
importance of the arrangements for scientific killing. A nation
governed by science would be a peace-loving and peace-maintaining
nation.
_AGRICULTURE AND NATIONAL LIFE._
Some very interesting points of view are presented in an article on
the food supply of England which appeared a few months ago in The New
Century Review of London. The writer, Mr. Richard Higgs, Jr., is very
unwilling to admit the commonly accepted view that Great Britain must
be dependent upon other countries for the food her people require. He
holds that all that is required to make the production of grain
profitable in England is the application of higher intelligence and
more businesslike methods to the work of the farm. "Speaking
generally," he says, "agriculture has been of late a despised
industry; intellectual activity has not been brought to bear on it;
the men of force and enterprise have failed to recognize that it
offers an absolutely unrivaled sphere for the exercise of personal
initiative, skill, and knowledge.... Agriculture has not been regarded
as a means of assisting human development, but rather as a hindrance
to progress. A low type of manhood and a slow, unprogressive condition
of life are usually regarded as indispensable to agriculture, and
consequently it has been neglected by reformers who desire to further
the progress of the race."
The writer proceeds to describe the various ways in which, as he
believes, agriculture might be made more profitable, partly through
lowering of the cost of production, and partly by improvement of the
yield; and, finally, he sets forth the disagreeable and very serious
conclusions which flow from the proposition--if it is to be accepted
as established--that Great Britain can not feed herself by the
remunerative production of wheat in the face of low prices. In the
first place, the national policy must be one of "bluff and weakness
toward other nations: bluff, because it will not answer our purpose to
appear weak; and weakness, because, seeing that possible enemies are
our largest feeders, we are not in a condition to deal with other
nations on equal terms, but must ever face the galling necessity of
being dependent upon the good will of a few powerful nations for our
daily bread." A nation so situated must be "in the front rank of the
nations which are engaging in the mad scramble after markets"; must
give itself over "to all the orthodox requirements of diplomacy by
engaging in bullying, cringing, lying, deceit, and massacre, in order
to secure an outlet for its manufactured goods." Such a fact further
implies "the eternal persistence on the face of the land of those
hideous monstrosities--our manufacturing towns; those excrescences
which, like the dragon of old, are daily vomiting fire and smoke, and
by their foulness are blasting and cursing the lives of the people and
causing the physical, mental, and moral deterioration of the race....
It banishes the poetry, the music, and the glories of an agricultural
life, and condemns untold millions to the artificial and unhealthy
moral atmosphere of our towns."
It may be said that all this has not much application to the state of
things in these happy United States. It has application to at least
this extent, that our towns too are becoming bloated and our country
places starved. We are fully at one with the writer in his estimate of
the agricultural life, and believe that no greater service could be
rendered to any country than to place its agriculture on the moral and
intellectual, as well as on the economic, level which it has a just
claim to occupy. It is the application of science to agriculture that
will bring about this result.
Scientific Literature.
SPECIAL BOOKS.
_The Theory of the Leisure Class_[58] of Mr. _Thorstein Veblen_ is
primarily an inquiry into the place and value of the leisure class as
an economic factor in modern life. Hardly less attention, however, is
given to the origin and line of derivation of the institution, and to
features of social life not commonly classed as economic, into the
very heart of some of which the study goes. The institution of the
leisure class, which is defined generally as that class whose
occupation is not industrial, is found in its best development at the
higher stages of the barbarian culture, as in feudal Europe or feudal
Japan. Whichever way we go from this point it is modified. Its origin
appears at a very early stage in history, and appears in the germ in
the savage division of the occupations of men and women. The women
carried on the industries, and the men went to the hunt or to
war--occupations with which the idea of prowess or exploit was
associated, giving the stamp of aristocracy. In the highest
development of this distinction, the nonindustrial upper-class
occupations may be roughly comprised under the heads of government,
warfare, religious observances, and sports. In the sequence of
cultural evolution the emergence of a leisure class coincides with the
beginning of ownership, ownership of women being one of the most
conspicuous forms in earlier times, then ownership of property and its
symbols. Among the signs of wealth are conspicuous leisure, which
includes social distinction and functions and conspicuous consumption,
or the possession of fine things not necessaries, and plenty of them.
These lead to the setting up of a pecuniary standard of living and
pecuniary canons of taste, and the adoption of dress as an expression
of the pecuniary culture. In the chapter on Industrial Exemption and
Conservatism we are introduced to the reason of conventionalism and of
its power. "The fact that the usages, actions, and views of the
well-to-do leisure class acquire the character of a prescriptive canon
of conduct for the rest of society gives added weight and reach to the
conservative influence of that class. It makes it incumbent upon all
respectable people to follow their lead." Hence it exerts a retarding
influence on social development, stiffening the resistance of all
other classes against innovation. Further, the code of proprieties in
vogue at any given time or in any society has the character of an
organic whole, and any important infringement upon it is likely to
derange it. This conservative quality goes so far as to tend toward
spiritual survival and reversion. The idea of prowess survives in our
barbaric admiration of military exploits, in the taste for sports, and
in the gambling tendency, which is based on belief in luck and is
enhanced by the desire to triumph at the expense of another. A
connection is traced between the admiration of prowess and the
cultivation of the devotional spirit which, joined with the fondness
for display, leads all worshipers eventually to elaboration of
rituals. A further development, classed as Survivals of the
Non-Invidious Interest, is that of beneficences. The Higher Learning
was primarily the exclusive privilege of the leisure class, and has
still attached to it a mass of ritual in the shape of paraphernalia,
ceremonies, degrees, and privileges which grow more elaborate as the
college and the community become richer. Devotion to classical
learning, which is practically useless, is a form of "conspicuous
leisure" and "conspicuous expenditure," but now encounters a rival in
athletics, which is equally useless and conspicuous and more costly.
[Footnote 58: The Theory of the Leisure Class. An Economic Study
in the Evolution of Institutions. By Thorstein Veblen. New York:
The Macmillan Company. Pp. 400. Price, $2.]
The American Economic Association, at its meeting in Cleveland, Ohio,
in 1897, authorized the appointment of a committee to inquire into the
scope and method of the eleventh census, with a view of determining
what ought to be attempted in the twelfth. In order to make an
adequate review of the eleventh census this committee invited a
certain number of critical articles on particular portions of the
work; and further, in order to discover what might seem weak points in
the work and what inquiries it might seem desirable to elaborate in
the twelfth census, addressed a circular letter of questions to all
the members of the association. Only about sixty replies were received
to the questions, but a generous response was made to the invitations
to contribute reviews, the result of which is a series of papers by
independent authors upon specific topics which are regarded as
constituting a very valuable commentary on the Federal census and on
statistical methods in general. These criticisms are now embodied in a
book[59] of more than five hundred pages, containing twenty essays by
authors each of whom is specially interested in the particular topic
of which he treats. These articles include a general review of the
statistics of population, by Walter F. Wilcox, and special articles on
the negro population, by W. Z. Ripley; the North American Indians, by
Franz Boas; Age, Sex, Dwellings, and Families, and Urban Population,
by George K. Holmes; Illiteracy and Educational Statistics, by Davis
R. Dewey; Statistics of Occupation, by Richard Mayo-Smith; Various
Aspects of the Vital and Social Statistics, by Cressy L. Wilbur,
Irving Fisher, Roland P. Falkner, and Samuel M. Lindsay; of
Agriculture and Farms, by N. I. Stone and David Kelley;
Transportation, by Emery R. Johnson and Walter E. Weyl; Manufactures,
by S. N. D. North, William M. Stewart, Worthington C. Ford, and
Charles J. Bullock; Wealth, Debt, and Taxation, by Carl C. Plehn;
Municipal Finance, by Henry B. Gardner; and the Scope and Method of
the Twelfth Census, by William C. Hunt. A number of general
conclusions are pointed out by the committee as deducible from the
papers contributed by these writers. The criticism throughout touches
not so much the accuracy of the census as the treatment of the data
and the lack of continuity from census to census--both defects
believed to be largely due to the insufficient time allowed by law for
preparing plans and schedules. The work of the census is believed to
be seriously impeded by the number and variety of the investigations
ordered, in consequence of which fundamental inquiries can not receive
attention. A number of subordinate inquiries might advantageously be
transferred to established bureaus or departments under whose scope
they would properly fall, and some of which already publish annual
volumes of kindred statistics. Among classes of defects or weaknesses
in method pointed out in the criticisms are a lack of comparability
in data from census to census, lack of co-ordination, certain
specified faults in method, and faults in the textual analysis of the
figures. A summary of the answers received to the circular letter of
questions is appended, particularly of the answers to the request to
suggest what special information might be furnished by the twelfth
census which is not in the eleventh. Many of the writers point to the
desirability of a permanent census bureau. The committee has a right
to congratulate itself, as it does, "upon this noteworthy collection
of papers--the result of the scientific zeal and effort of so many
men."
[Footnote 59: The Federal Census. Critical Essays by Members of
the American Economic Association, collected and edited by a
Special Committee. Published for the American Economic
Association by the Macmillan Company, New York. Pp. 516. Price,
$1; cloth, $2.50.]
GENERAL NOTICES.
The qualification of Mr. _Frederick A. Ober_ to write a book about
_Puerto Rico and its Resources_[60] is indicated by the facts that he
visited every point of importance on the island in 1880, and revisited
it as West Indian Commissioner for the Columbian Exposition. To the
fruits of observations made during these two visits he has added
information gathered from the books that have been written about
Puerto Rico by Spanish and other officers. A plain, concise account of
the island is presented, without sensational exaggerations and free
from apparent padding. It begins with the consideration and estimation
of the commercial and strategic value of the island. Next its coastal
features, rivers--of which it seems to have a relatively good
supply--and harbors are described. Then the climate, which is "hot and
moist, yet in the main less injurious to the health of white people
than that of adjacent islands"; seasons, which are not very variable;
and hurricanes, which appear to be rather an important feature. As to
products, they are of course tropical, and grow, as in Mexico, in
three zones of climate and vegetation. Considering these more
specially a chapter is given to Sugar, Tobacco, Coffee, and Cacao;
another to Fruits, Spices, Cereals, and Food Plants; and a third to
Dyes, Drugs, Woods, and Minerals. The chapter on Natural History
includes accounts of game and insect pests. The topographic
description begins with San Juan, the capital, and takes in the cities
and towns of the coast and the inland towns and routes of travel. A
few words are devoted to the government as it has been, and the
general characteristics of the people are briefly sketched. Accounts
of their foods, drinks, diversions, etc., are given, after which the
author passes to the Indians of Puerto Rico. Two chapters relate to
the general and the recent history of the island respectively.
Considerable information of a statistical character is included in an
appendix.
[Footnote 60: Puerto Rico and its Resources. By Frederick A.
Ober. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 282, with Map.]
President _D. S. Jordan's Footnotes to Evolution_[61] is made up of
popular essays or addresses on the general subject of organic
evolution which were given originally as oral lectures before
University Extension Societies. Three of them have been also published
in this Monthly, and as many in another magazine. Besides the author's
own twelve essays, he has inserted in this volume three other papers
of special importance, setting forth the present state of knowledge
concerning the methods of evolution and of heredity. These are on the
Factors of Organic Evolution as displayed in the Process of
Development, by Prof. E. G. Conklin; the Physical Basis of Heredity,
by Prof. F. M. McFarland; on The Testimony from Paleontology, by Prof.
J. P. Smith. President Jordan's own essays begin with a discussion of
the kinship of life. This is followed by three articles on evolution,
relating to its nature, elements, and factors from the point of view
of embryology, and an application of the subject in the paper on The
Heredity of Richard Roe, in which the rise of race types from the
survival of the existing race with its best results modified and
preserved by the survival of the fittest is illustrated. In the
seventh essay certain facts of animal distribution as related to the
origin of species are considered; in the eighth (Latitude and
Vertebrata) the curious biological problem of the possession of more
numerous vertebræ by northern than by tropical fishes is considered--a
problem the solution of which on any other hypothesis than that of the
derivation of species would be impossible. The evolution of mind is
then taken up as the sum total of all psychic changes, actions, and
reactions, and this development is extended to nations the laws of
whose greatness "expand themselves from the laws which govern the
growth of the single cell." In the essay on Degeneration a lesson is
drawn in favor of individual initiative. Hereditary Inefficiency is
discussed in view of the danger from pauperism. Some of the aspects of
the woman question are considered in another of the essays. In the
paper on The Stability of Truth some recent enunciations of Lord
Salisbury, Mr. Balfour, and Haeckel respecting science are criticised.
The last essay is on The Struggle for Realities, and concerns the
relations of science and conservatism, the Church, etc.
[Footnote 61: Footnotes to Evolution. By David Starr Jordan. With
Supplementary Essays by Edwin Grant Conklin, Frank Mace
McFarland, and James Perrin Smith. New York: D. Appleton and
Company. Pp. 392. Price, $1.]
Mr. _Robert P. Porter's_ volume on _Industrial Cuba_[62] deals with
living questions of the island. It aims to give a description of Cuba
as it appeared to the author when he visited it in the fall of 1898 as
special commissioner of the United States to report on its industrial,
commercial, and financial condition. It is the result of nearly seven
months' inquiry and hard work, in which the island was visited three
times, more than five hundred witnesses were examined, and "numerous
statements" were studied and analyzed. Among the special subjects
treated of are the political and economical condition of Cuba, the
outlook for labor, the population, sanitary work, Colonel Waring's
report, municipal problems in Havana, banks and currency, the revenue
and tariffs, commerce, sugar, tobacco, mines and mining, agriculture
and stock, timber and fruit, transportation, navigation, education and
religion, and the outlook for the future.
[Footnote 62: Industrial Cuba. Being a Study of Present
Commercial and Industrial Conditions, with Suggestions as to the
Opportunities presented in the Island for American Capital,
Enterprise, and Labor. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 428.
Price, $3.50.]
Naturalists and bibliophiles have reason to be grateful to Mr. _Call_
for his verbatim reproduction of Rafinesque's _Ichthyologia
Ohioensis_.[63] The book is of importance as constituting, in the
language of the editor, the foundation of fresh-water ichthyology in
America. No book dealing specifically with the Ohio Valley area as a
region has since been published. The original description of many fish
forms which are now recognized by ichthyologists as good species were
first given in this book, and many have not since been reprinted.
Further, the book contains the first and most complete description, to
date, of the Ohio River from Pittsburg down, with notices of all its
tributaries. Its value as a book about fishes is not limited to the
Ohio River, for the species of that stream are found, to a greater or
less extent, throughout the Mississippi Valley, so that it is in
effect a necessity to all students of the fresh-water fishes of that
territory. The editor regrets that Rafinesque did not preserve in some
manner the types of his genera, instead of which, when the technical
description was completed and some common form, if one was known, was
referred to, the specimen was discarded or rejected. Hence his
descriptions can not be compared conveniently with prepared specimens
in cabinets or with descriptions made from them, but the student must
go to the river and look up the living fish. The original papers of
Rafinesque on fishes were published in The Western Review and
Miscellaneous Magazine, Lexington, Ky., in 1819, 1820, and 1821. The
matter was then arranged in book form from the same type. Two
different systems of pagination resulted. These have both been
indicated in the present edition by the insertion of the numbers at
their proper places. The reprint is an exact copy of the original,
including even typographical errors, excepting only the style of type.
Of the original edition only eight copies are known to exist, so that
the republication was desirable to preserve the book, as well as for
the facilitation of reference, and of this only two hundred and fifty
numbered copies are printed for the market.
[Footnote 63: Ichthyologia Ohioensis: or Natural History of the
Fishes inhabiting the River Ohio and its Tributary Streams. By C.
S. Rafinesque. A Verbatim and Literatim Reprint of the Original,
with a Sketch of the Life, the Ichthyologic Work, and the
Ichthyologic Bibliography of Rafinesque. By Richard Ellsworth
Call. Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Company. Pp. 175. Price,
$4.]
Mr. _Douglas Houghton Campbell_ has endeavored, in his _Lectures on
the Evolution of Plants_,[64] to present in as untechnical a manner as
seemed feasible the more striking facts bearing upon the evolution of
plant forms, believing that it will fill an existing want among
English text-books. The substance of the work was given originally in
the form of lectures to classes in Leland Stanford Junior University.
After an introduction, in which a few fundamental principles are
presented, elementary structures are defined, and accepted
classification is mentioned, the conditions of plant life are treated
of as relating to food substances, water, life, division of labor, and
movements, of which all plants exhibit more or less marked ones, that
may be spontaneous. While in the simple unicellular plants all the
functions are performed by a single cell, a gradual division of labor
takes place as we go up, first in a separation of the vegetative and
reproductive cells, and later a further specialization of both
vegetative and reproductive functions, culminating in the seed plant.
This course is described as exemplified in the simplest forms of life,
algæ, fungi, mosses and liverworts, ferns, and seed plants of the
different classes. The study of the geological relations, fragmentary
as their teachings are, has yielded most important evidence for
tracing the succession of plant forms. Observation of geographical
distribution casts much light on the subject. The relations of animals
and plants have an important bearing. The influence of the environment
embraces many factors, and is often shown in conspicuous features of
form and structure adapting plants to certain sorts of conditions and
enabling them to resist others. Plants have thus succeeded in adapting
themselves to almost every environment.
[Footnote 64: Lectures on the Evolution of Plants. By Douglas
Houghton Campbell. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 319.
Price, $1.25.]
Prof. _Augustus de Morgan's_ book _On the Study and Difficulties of
Mathematics_,[65] though originally published more than sixty years
ago, is still fresh and suggestive and full of matter valuable alike
to students and teachers, and possesses qualities of clearness of
reasoning and intelligibility from which many mathematical treatises
are unfortunately free. Its purpose is to notice particularly several
important points in the principles of algebra and geometry which have
not obtained their due importance in elementary works in those
sciences. Metaphysical points are avoided, and the method of
explaining by reference to some particular problem, with hints as to
more general adaptation, is adopted. Among the points taken up and
classified are the nature and objects of mathematics, arithmetical and
algebraic notation, rules and principles, equations, the negative
sign, roots and logarithms, geometrical subjects, and application of
algebra to measurements. The editor of the present edition, Mr. Thomas
J. McCormack, has corrected the errata of the old edition and
incorporated such changes as the progress of time and mathematical
literature have made seem proper. An excellent portrait of De Morgan
is given.
[Footnote 65: On the Study and Difficulties of Mathematics. By
Augustus De Morgan. New edition. Chicago: The Open Court
Publishing Company. Pp. 288.]
The purpose of _Carpenter's Geographical Reader, North America_
(American Book Company), is to give its readers a living knowledge of
some of the wonders of the country and continent in which they live.
They are taken by the author, Mr. _Frank G. Carpenter_, on a
personally conducted tour through the most characteristic parts of the
American continent, studying the most interesting features of life and
work among the people, learning how they are governed, and how they
make their living. Much information is also given concerning the
natural resources and the physical features of the countries visited.
The _Japan-American Commercial Journal_ is a monthly periodical
started with the beginning of the year, with an especial view to the
opening of the empire of Japan to unrestricted foreign trade and
residence, for the advancement of the reciprocal interests of Japan
and the United States. It is printed in English and Japanese, and is
published at Tokio by the Japan-American Commercial and Industrial
Association, for $2.50 a year.
_The Anglo-Saxon_ is a monthly magazine, the first number of which is
dated November, 1898, "devoted to the identity of the Anglo-Saxon race
with the house of Israel." It is edited by _George E. Inglis_, and
published by the Anglo-Saxon Publishing Company, Chicago. The title of
the first paragraph--"Cui bono"--seems to us to suggest a very
appropriate question. The argument seems to be that the house of
Israel was appointed to universal dominion, and the Anglo-Saxon race,
between England and the United States, with its late war "as nearly a
Christian war as any war might be," is getting it.
Among the general papers in the second volume, containing Parts II and
III, of the _Report of the Commissioner of Education_ for 1896-'97 are
those on Federal and State Aid to Higher Education, the First Common
Schools of New England, the Learned Professions and Social Control,
and the Beginnings of the Common-School System in the South.
Statistics of foreign universities are given, with a paper on the
Teaching of Geography in certain foreign countries, and consular
reports on educational topics. Professor Boas's paper on the Growth of
Toronto Children is included. Educational matters of interest in
various States are reported upon. An Eskimo vocabulary is introduced.
A special report on education in Alaska appears. Part III is devoted
to statistical matter.
The _Occult Science Library_ is a course of seven essays on the
subject of practical occultism by _Ernest Loomis_. The author assumes
that the rules based on the occult principles of Nature would, if
fully applied, enable any person to invoke the assistance of occult
forces in every practical rule of life, and that they may with like
success be applied in matters of health, the acquisition of knowledge,
the formation of plans, and the solution of religious and ethical
enigmas. The publishers claim that the maxims of the book have proved
their efficiency to the satisfaction of thousands who have read them.
(Published by Ernest Loomis & Co., Chicago.)
Mr. _James G. Needham_ has furnished, in _Outdoor Studies_ (American
Book Company), one of the fullest and most systematic guides or
"reading books," as he calls this one, for Nature study that we have
seen. Recognizing that there is no lack, in numbers, of books offering
object lessons, etc., for children of the earlier years intervening
between the primary and the high school, he has prepared this book to
supply for the later years of that period "a few lessons of greater
continuity, calling for more persistence of observation and
introducing a few of the simpler of our modern conceptions of Nature
at large." The lessons presuppose some years of experience of life and
some previous training in observation; they are given simply for the
sake of the interest and educative value of the facts and phenomena of
Nature which they set forth; and they have been written more for the
boys and girls than for the teachers. The things described--birds,
insects, plants, etc.--are such as can be seen anywhere. Mr. Needham
tells how to study them and learn what they mean.
In _Commissioner Hume, a Story of New York Schools_, a sequel to
Roderick Hume, the Story of a New York Teacher, Mr. _C. W. Bardeen_
has undertaken to give a picture of rural New York schools, or rather
of the administration of school affairs by commissioners as they were
in 1875, and he declares it to be accurate. He represents, however,
that the general tone of the commissioners has vastly changed in the
period that has intervened since then, and the conditions described in
the volume no longer prevail. The book is offered, therefore, as a
contribution to educational history. (Published by C. W. Bardeen,
Syracuse, N. Y.)
The southern half of Missouri and the Black Hills of South Dakota
offer exceptionally delightful regions for the study of caves, or
speleology, as well as of geology and geography. Each of these regions
has its peculiar geological history and its own scenery, and
possesses a number of truly wonderful caves. Some of the more
important of these caves and the scenery amid which they lie are
described by Mrs. _Luella Agnes_ Owen in the book _Cave Regions of the
Black Hills_ (Cincinnati: the Editor Publishing Company), and we have
been much interested in reading the accounts. The descriptions are
introduced by summaries of the methods of the formation of caves and
of the results of the geological and topographical explorations of the
regions in which they are situated, as presented in official reports
and scientific memoirs. The descriptions are for the most part
relations of the author's personal explorations of the caves. The most
important of these caves are Marble Cave, "the finest yet explored in
Missouri," and Wind Cave, in South Dakota, said to be the largest
known after the Mammoth Cave. Others are Fairy, Powell, Stone County,
Oregon County Caves and the Grand Gulf in Missouri, and the Onyx and
Crystal Caves in South Dakota. Many illustrations are given. The
author has fine descriptive powers, but her literary style needs
discipline. She is the first American, and the only woman, so far,
elected to membership in the Société de Speleologie of Paris.
A valuable paper on _Sympathetic Strikes and Sympathetic Lockouts_ is
published by Mr. _Fred S. Hall_ as the first number of the eleventh
volume of the Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and
Public Law. In it, the author having fixed the definition of
sympathetic strikes and lockouts as distinguished from those not
sympathetic, and having found the difference between a strike and a
lockout, discusses the origin and development of the two sympathetic
movements, analyzes them, and forecasts the future as it is indicated
by the past. Illustrations are freely drawn from the important strikes
and lockouts that have occurred in the United States and abroad for a
number of years past.
_The Year Book of Colorists and Dyers_, in the opinion of the author,
Mr. _Harwood Huntington_, supplies a want, for, so far as he is aware,
there are no other portable works in the English language to which the
color-chemist can refer and find the information which he requires the
oftenest. The object of the present publication is to meet the demand
for a review of the advances made annually in the special field worked
in by dyers and colorists--in the bleaching, dyeing, printing, and
finishing of textiles--and it endeavors to do this with accuracy and
brevity. (Published by the author, New York.)
The first number of _The Socialist Almanac and Treasury of Facts_ has
been issued in accordance with a decision of the National Convention
of the Socialist Labor Party, held in New York in July, 1896. It has
been prepared by _Lucien Sanial_, to whom the task was assigned by the
National Executive Committee. A large proportion of it is historical,
and consists mainly of monographs presenting views of the movements
and condition of "militant socialism" in Germany, Austria, Italy,
Spain, and Belgium, from its beginning to the present day. Special
attention is invited by the author to the monographs on Italy and
Spain as tracing the struggle between socialism and anarchism to its
beginning. The second part of the book contains statistical matter and
comments on economical and social conditions, which, if the argument
on "Who owns the Savings?" is a specimen of its quality, must be
accepted with many reservations.
Prof. William Wadden Turner, a native of England who came to this
country at an early age, became an eminent scholar in Oriental
literature, and in 1842 a professor of that subject in Union
Theological Seminary. He was called thence to Washington in 1852 to
organize the library of the Patent Office, where his work was of great
value. Thence he was taken by Professor Baird to catalogue and arrange
the library of the Smithsonian Institution. He associated his sister
with him in this work and as recorder of scientific collections and
exchanges in 1858. She continued there after his death the next year,
and served the library faithfully and efficiently, going with it to
the Congressional Library when it was removed there, till 1886, when
she resigned on account of age. She died in 1896. A _Memorial_ of the
two and of their elder sister Susan has been prepared by Mrs.
_Caroline H. Dall_ and has been printed privately.
The author of _What is This?_ after a brief discussion of the
personality of Jesus and the present degenerate condition of
Christianity, goes on to say: "We must have another revelation,
therefore. It seems to be a necessity. But what troubles me is this:
can it be possible that any part of this revelation can come through
one as humble as myself? What have I seen and what have I heard?... I
have often pondered the great questions of man's origin and future;
never until now, never until I heard this voice, have I had any
glimmer of a solution of this great puzzle. I know I am nothing, but
can not the Supreme Being use a mere nothing to accomplish his
purpose?" Notwithstanding the author's avowed unworthiness, he seems
to have been selected, and we have from his pen a new and considerably
detailed book of genesis.
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
Acetylene Gas Journal. Monthly. Vol. I, No. 1. June, 1899. Buffalo, N.
Y. Pp. 12. 5 cents. 50 cents a year.
Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins and Reports. Delaware
College: No. 43. Veterinary Studies, Milk Legislation, and Basic Slag
as a Fertilizer.--Michigan State Agricultural College. No. 169. Notes
from the South Haven Sub-Station. By L. R. Taft and T. T. Lyon. Pp.
108; Nos. 170, 171. Vegetable Tests and Bush Fruits. Pp. 42; Nos. 172,
173. Combating Disease-producing Germs and Killing the Tubercle
Bacillus in Milk. Four authors. Pp. 30.--Montana: No. 18. The Alkali
Soils of Montana. Preliminary Bulletin. Pp. 30.--United States
Department of Agriculture: No. 24. Proceedings of the Convention of
Weather-Bureau Officials, held at Omaha, Neb., October 13 and 14,
1898. Pp. 184, with plate.
Anglo-American Magazine. Monthly. May and June, 1899. Pp. 120 and 128.
25 cents. $2.50 a year.
Blackman, William F. The Making of Hawaii. A Study in Social
Evolution. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 266. $2.
Breese, B. B. On Inhibition. (Monograph Supplement to the
Psychological Review.) New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 65.
Bulletins, Reports, Transactions, etc. Academy of Natural Sciences of
Philadelphia, 1899. Part I. January, February, and March. Pp. 216,
with plates.--American Society of Naturalists: Records. Vol. II, Part
IV. Providence, R. I. Pp. 36.--New York Academy of Sciences: Annals.
Vol. XII, Part I. Pp. 89.--New York State Reformatory, Elmira:
Year-Book for 1898. Pp. 126.--Société Royale de Canada: Report of the
Geographical Society of Quebec. Pp. 2.--United States Department of
Labor: Bulletin No. 22. May, 1899. Pp. 42.--University of Tennessee:
Record, Review of 1898. Knoxville, Tenn. Pp. 56.--Wyoming State
Medical Society: Transactions. May and June, 1899, E. Stuver,
Secretary. Pp. 75.--Zoölogical Society of Philadelphia: Twenty-seventh
Annual Report of the Board of Directors. Pp. 25.
Cragin, Belle S. Our Insect Friends and Foes. New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 377. $1.75.
Dana, Charles A. Recollections of the Civil War. New York: D. Appleton
and Company. Pp. 296. $2.
Davis, Lucius D. Ornamental Shrubs for Garden, Lawn, and Park
Planting. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 338. $3.50.
Dexter, E. G. Conduct and the Weather. (Monograph Supplement of the
Psychological Review.) New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 101. $1.
Erlingsson, Dr. Thorstein. Ruins of the Saga Time. (Travels and
Explorations in Iceland.) London: David Nutt. Pp. 112, with map.
Fergusen, James. A New System of Natural Philosophy. Book I. The
Physical Universe. Published by the Author at Talmage, Neb. Pp. 240.
Field Columbian Museum, Chicago. Publication No. 30. New Rodents from
the Olympic Mountains. By D. G. Elliot. Pp. 4.--No. 31. Cold-Blooded
Vertebrates from the Olympic Mountains. By S. E. Meek. Pp. 10.--No.
32. Catalogue of Mammals from the Olympic Mountains, Washington. By D.
G. Elliot. Pp. 36, with plates.--No. 33. The Ores of Colombia. By H.
W. Nichols. Pp. 56, with maps.--No. 34. The Mylagaulidæ. An Extinct
Family of Sciuromorph Rodents. By E. S. Riggs. Pp. 8.--No. 35. A
Fossil Egg from South Dakota. By A. C. Farrington. Pp. 8, with
plates.--No. 36. Contributions to the Paleontology of the Upper
Cretaceous Series. By W. N. Logan. Pp. 16, with plates.--No. 37.
Mammals from Oklahoma Territory. By D. G. Elliot. Pp. 4.--No. 38.
Mammals from the Indian Territory. By D. G. Elliot. Pp. 8.
Heilprin, Angelo. Alaska and the Klondike. New York: D. Appleton and
Company. Pp. 315.
Hrdlicka, Dr. Ales. Anthropological Investigations of Children in the
New York Juvenile Asylum. Pp. 86, with plates.
Irish, Cyrus W. Qualitative Analysis for Secondary Schools. American
Book Company. Pp. 100.
James, Charles C. Practical Agriculture. American edition. Edited by
John Craig. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 203. 80 cents.
Jordan, David Starr. Imperial Democracy. New York: D. Appleton and
Company. Pp. 293. $1.50.
Jordan, David Starr, Leonhard Stejneger, and other Official
Associates. The Fur Seals and Fur-Seal Islands of the North Pacific
Ocean. Part IV. Washington: Government Printing Office. Pp. 384, with
maps and plates.
Kenne, A. H. Man Past and Present. Cambridge, England; New York: The
Macmillan Company. Pp. 584. $3.
Lavignac, Albert. Music and Musicians. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp.
504. $3.
Miller, Olive Thorne. The First Book of Birds. Boston and New York:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 149.
Missouri Botanical Garden. Tenth Annual Report. William Trelease,
Director. St. Louis. Pp. 209, with plates.
Moon, J. Howard. Better-World Philosophy. Chicago: The Ward Waugh
Company. Pp. 275.
Reprints. Abbott, Samuel W. Infant Mortality in Massachusetts. Boston:
Small, Maynard & Co. Pp. 19.--Baillairgé, Charles. La Vie,
L'Evolutlon, et le Materialism. (Life, Evolution, and Materialism.)
Pp. 37.--Le Grec, le Latin: leur Utilité, etc. (Greek and Latin: their
Utility, etc.) Pp. 48; L'Antiquité de la Terre et de l'Homme.
(Antiquity of the Earth and of Man.) Pp. 23; Royal Society of
Canada.--Burt, Stephen S. Recollections and Reflections of a Quarter
of a Century. New York. Pp. 12.--Cathell, W. T. On the Reduction of
Obesity. Pp. 12.--Goode, John P. The Piracy of the Yellowstone.
University of Chicago. Pp. 12.--Halsted, Byron D., New Brunswick, N.
J. Root Tubercles and Nitrogen Appropriation. Pp. 14.--MacBride,
Thomas H. Botany, How Much and When? Iowa City. Pp. 11.--Marsh,
Othniel Charles, Biographical Sketch by Charles E. Beecher. From the
American Journal of Science. Pp. 28, with portrait.--Meyer, Max. Ueber
Beurtheilung Zusammengesetzer Klänge. (On the Estimation of Composite
Sounds.) Leipsic, Saxony. Pp. 33.--Poteat, W. L. Leidy's Genus
Ouramoeba. Pp. 5.--Sexton, Pliny T. Reasons and Authorities for
Favoring Education Unification under the Regents of the University.
Pp. 56.--Von Schrenck, Herman. A Disease of Taxodium known as
Peckiness, etc. St. Louis. Washington University. Pp. 54, with plates.
Scudder, Samuel H. Everyday Butterflies. Boston and New York:
Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 386.
Sutro, Emil. Duality of Voice. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 224.
$1.
Sites, C. M. L. Centralized Administration of Liquor Laws in the
American Commonwealths. (Columbia University Studies in History,
Economics, and Public Law.) New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 162.
Union Pacific Railroad Company, Passenger Department. Some of
Wyoming's Vertebrate Fossils. Pp. 31.
United States Geological Survey. Eighteenth Annual Report. Part I.
Director's Report, Triangulation, and Spirit Leveling. Pp. 440.--Part
II. Papers chiefly of a Theoretic Nature. Pp. 653, with maps.--Part
III. Economic Geology. Pp. 861, with maps.--Part IV. Hydrography. Pp.
756, New York City and Vicinity Map.
United States National Museum: Lord, E. C. E. Petrographic Notes on
Rocks from the United States-Mexico Boundary. Pp. 10, with
map.--Richardson. Harriet. Key to the Isopods of the Pacific Coast,
etc. Pp. 56.--Stejneger, Leonhard. The Land Reptiles of the Hawaiian
Islands. Pp. 32.
Vita Nuova. (New Life.) A Fortnightly Illustrated Review of Letters,
Arts, and Sciences. Clelia Bertini-Attilii, Director. Rome. Pp.
16.
Walter, Robert, M. D. Vital Science based upon Life's Great Law, the
Analogue of Gravitation. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. Pp.
319.
Watson, David K. History of American Coinage. New York: G. P. Putnam's
Sons. Pp. 278. $1.50.
Fragments of Science.
=Climate and Acclimatization.=--In view of the rapid growth of West
Indian and South American commerce and the considerable emigration to
Cuba and neighboring islands, which our present relations with them
will probably bring about, the following extracts from an editorial in
the London Lancet are of interest: "The American nation has entered
upon a new and, in a sense, imperial policy, which may be regarded as
forming an epoch in its history. This brings it face to face with the
problem of colonization and acclimatization--a problem which we have
had to confront long ago and toward the solution of which we have ever
since been slowly fighting our way by following on the lines of the
best practical measures of hygiene known to us. 'The white man's
burden' has proved a tragical one in its drain on the life of the
young manhood of this country, notwithstanding the very large measure
of success which has attended our sanitary efforts in this direction.
The Americans, having taken up their burden, will, no doubt, like the
practical people they are, set about their task in a practical way.
The four principal factors in the production of climate, according to
Buchan, are distance from the equator, height above the sea, distance
from the sea, and prevailing winds. The equatorial region has the most
equable climate; tropical regions have much greater variations of
temperature than those near the equator, and have a hot and cold or
dry and rainy season. The isothermal lines of mean temperature do not
supply a graduated measure of the effects of temperature on animal
life. So far as climate is concerned, no single meteorological
influence appears, however, to equal the effect of temperature upon
health, and its range is of more importance than its mean. The
European under a tropical climate suffers from anæmia, diseases of the
digestive system, especially of the liver, from malaria, dysentery,
typhoid fever, and yellow fever. It is not at all easy to say,
however, how much of the excess of mortality of Europeans in tropical
and subtropical countries is simply attributable to climatic heat _per
se_, and is consequently inevitable and not the effect of malaria, or
how much of it is the direct consequence of habits of life and of the
neglect of sanitary laws and of personal hygiene. As Arnould rightly
said, the _habitudes alimentaires_ of the Anglo-Saxon constitute one
of the stumbling-blocks to health, but by far the most important is
malaria, compared with which the rest are relatively insignificant.
Mr. Chamberlain was right when he said the other day that 'the man who
shall successfully grapple with this foe to humanity and shall find a
cure for malarial fever and shall make the tropics livable for the
white man, will do more for the world and more for the British Empire
than the man who adds a new province to the wide dominions of the
Queen.'"
"=Picture Telegraphy.="--The following account of the new so-called
picture telegraphy is from the New York Electrical World and Engineer:
"The apparatus consists of a receiver and transmitter, similar in
appearance and in mechanism. The picture to be transmitted is drawn on
a heavy piece of metal foil, the lines of the drawing being made with
an insulating ink. The foil is then secured on the circumference of a
horizontal cylinder on the transmitter, the cylinder being of about
the size of a typewriter rubber roller. There is a similar cylinder on
the receiver, on whose surface is clamped the paper upon which the
drawing is to be reproduced; over this is superposed carbon paper,
which is covered in turn by a sheet of thin paper. A stylus actuated
by an electro-magnet is adjusted close to the surface of the latter,
and each time a current is passed through the electro-magnet the
stylus is forcibly pressed against the moving surface of the cylinder,
and a corresponding mark is made on the two sheets in contact with the
carbon paper; the outer sheet serves merely to offer a smooth surface
to the stylus and to enable the operator to see that the picture is
being properly reproduced. The transmitting cylinder passes under a
similar stylus, which latter closes the circuit between the receiving
and transmitting ends when it rests upon the foil, and opens the
circuit when it passes over the lines drawn with insulating ink, in
the latter case actuating the stylus magnet at the receiving end,
which leaves a mark on the paper of the receiving cylinder in the form
of a line corresponding to the width of the insulation over which the
transmitting stylus is passing. The stylus at each end of the line is
simultaneously advanced at the end of each revolution of the cylinders
by a screw of small pitch. From the description it will be seen that
if the surface of the foil on the transmitting cylinder were entirely
insulated the receiving stylus would merely draw a number of parallel
lines on the paper corresponding to the turns of the screw, and
separated a distance corresponding to the pitch of the screw and the
angle through which it is turned at each operation. Four different
rates of advance may be given to the stylus, corresponding to as many
different angles of advance that may, by appropriate mechanism, be
given to the screw. The two cylinders have synchronous motion, so that
all the marks or lines on the receiving cylinder correspond to widths
of insulating ink traced over on the transmitting cylinder.
Synchronism is obtained as follows: Connected with both receiver and
transmitter is an electric motor which, at the end of every revolution
of the cylinder, raises a weight, which acts on a clock train when
falling and thus gives motion to the cylinder. At the end of each
revolution of the transmitting cylinder a contact is made which locks
for an instant the receiving cylinder when it arrives in a position
corresponding to a similar position of the transmitting cylinder. Thus
it will be seen that each cylinder begins its revolution from
identical positions and at the same instant, and as the clockwork of
both receiver and transmitter are duplicates, approximate synchronism
is maintained during a revolution. Owing to the use of carbon paper,
the lines made by the receiver are of considerable width, with the
consequence that the resulting picture does not have the appearance of
being made up of parallel lines, as in the case of reproductions by
the original Caselli picture telegraph, of which the system described
is a modification. The Hummell apparatus appears to be entirely
practicable, the simplicity of its synchronizing mechanism giving it a
great advantage over former types of Caselli picture telegraphs. The
apparatus has been worked duplex with success. In one instance, a few
days ago, a picture was sent from New York to St. Louis while one was
being received from the same place in New York, the latter picture in
addition being received simultaneously at Boston."
=The Charges on Country Checks: an Economic Mistake.=--An article in
the May issue of the Yale Review, discussing the recent adoption by
the New York banks of a rule imposing a "collection charge" on all
country checks handled, takes the view that the new rule is a mistake.
After reviewing the history and present position of the Bank of
England; calling attention to the fact that although it is a private
enterprise its position is used as a governor, so to speak, of English
finance; the similarity to it in position and power for good or evil
of the association of banks known as the New York Clearing House is
pointed out; the review goes on to say: "In the associated banks of
New York, as in the Bank of England, is kept a very large part of the
reserve on which the great financial transactions of a whole country
are based. The system of 'reserve cities' for holding large deposit
accounts of country banks, in which New York is by far the most
important center, is but the recognition in the national banking law
of this great fact of a central reserve, and the power of utilizing
such deposits, indirectly extended by the law which allows and
encourages country banks to hold a large part of their legal reserve
in the form of deposits in New York, probably constitutes a much more
valuable privilege than the rights of note issue enjoyed by the Bank
of England. In extraordinary emergencies the parallel is even closer.
Just as the Bank of England is encouraged to expect a modification of
the restrictions on its right of note issue, as a means of extending
its effective currency reserve in times of panic, so the New York
banks, by their system of clearing-house loan certificates, are
encouraged and expected to evade those provisions of our national
banking laws which restrict their power of issuing notes to meet an
emergency.... The exercise of this function of holding a reserve for
clearing the business of the country is attended with some expense, as
well as with much profit. One of the most vexatious of these expenses
has been the cost of collecting country checks.... Under these
circumstances they have adopted a rule imposing such charges on
country checks as to compel a large part of the remittances to be made
in the form of bank drafts on New York city, rather than individual
checks on country banks supposed to have accounts with some New York
bank. This rule will save the New York banks something like two
million dollars annually. It will not prevent any solvent man from
making remittances, for if he has a deposit in his local bank and his
local bank has a deposit in New York he can buy a draft to send as a
remittance, which will pass through the New York Clearing House
without question or expense. Yet, in spite of these plausible
arguments, we believe the action of the New York banks to be a mistake
of very serious magnitude, an inconvenience to the public, a probable
loss to deposit banking in the long run, and, worst of all, a serious
blow to the cause of sound currency throughout the country. It seems
to us, in short, a case where narrower duties and economics have been
allowed to crowd broader ones out of sight." The review then goes on
to show how great an amount of inconvenience and loss of time in the
aggregate the new rule is going to cause, and finally says: "In a
popular government the greatest safeguard against soft money--we may
fairly say the _only_ real safeguard--is to prevent the growth of a
demand for soft money. And of all the means of prevention at our
command the most effective is the encouragement of the habit of paying
by checks. The habit of paying by check is very general in all large
business centers, and has been rapidly extending into the smaller
centers, and the most serious public danger in the action of the New
York banks is that it seems likely to deal a severe blow to such
progress."
=La Nature's Second Scientific Excursion.=--A second scientific
excursion to an interesting district of France is planned, by M. Henri
de Parville, of _La Nature_, to start from Bayonne August 25th. It
will spend about two weeks, following the chain of the Pyrenees from
the ocean to the Mediterranean. Among objects of interest enumerated
are the scenery at Biarritz, Pau, Cauterets, and Bigorre; fine
architecture at Toulouse, Carcassonne, Elne, etc.; glacial phenomena
and thermal waters along the whole mountain chain; manufactories,
including iron works at Bouchain, woolen mills at Bigorre, cigarette
factories at Perpignan, and the Arago Maritime Laboratory and the
sanitarium at Banyuls. The excursion will be "personally conducted" by
the eminent anthropologist and archæologist, M. E. Cartaillac. The
excursion last year, to the Central Plateau and the Tarn, was an
eminent success. The programme of the present one seems equally
attractive. M. de Parville and his associates deserve great credit for
their sagacity and enterprise in inaugurating these excursions, which
now promise to become annual. We can conceive nothing more profitable
and conducive to real pleasure in a vacation than the tour in the
company of men having a common interest in the pursuit of knowledge of
Nature and art, through such magnificent regions as that of the
Pyrenees or through a country so full of natural wonders and novelties
as that of last year's excursion. And it will be an incalculable
advantage to be under the guidance of so eminent a student and one so
familiar with the remarkable features and the antiquities of southern
France as M. Cartaillac.
=The American Association Meeting.=--The forty-eighth annual meeting
of the American Association for the Advancement of Science will be
held at Columbus, Ohio, August 19th to 26th. The association
headquarters will be in University Hall, of the Ohio State University,
and the headquarters of the council will be at the Chittenden Hotel.
The president of the meeting will be Prof. Edward Orton, of the Ohio
State University. The vice-presidents or chairmen of sections will be:
Mathematics and astronomy, Alexander Macfarlane; physics, Elihu
Thomson; chemistry, F. P. Venable; mechanics and engineering, Storm
Bull; geology and geography, J. F. Whiteaves; zoölogy, S. H. Gage;
botany, Charles R. Barnes; anthropology, Thomas Wilson; social and
economic science, Marcus Benjamin. The Permanent Secretary is L. O.
Howard, Cosmos Club, Washington; General Secretary, Frederick Bedell,
Cornell University; Secretary of the Council, Charles Baskerville,
Chapel Hill, N. C.; Treasurer, R. S. Woodward, Columbia University,
New York. The address of retiring President Putnam will be delivered
Monday evening, August 21st. Saturday, August 26th, will be devoted to
excursions to Fort Ancient and elsewhere. Receptions and shorter
excursions will be provided at hours that will not conflict with the
appointments of the association.
=The Desire for Notoriety a Cause of Crime.=--Under the title
_Luccheni Redivivus_ the London Lancet gives some interesting
psychological data which have been obtained since the imprisonment of
Luccheni, the assassin of the Austrian Empress. Twice since his trial
and conviction he has attempted suicide. Within the last few days (May
13th) his moral condition has undergone a change confirmatory in a
significant degree of the diagnosis which found vanity or megalomania
at the root of his crime. The cantonal juge d'instruction in an
attempt to ascertain if possible his associates in the crime, visited
him in his cell and approached the subject with what seemed to himself
due dexterity and caution. At once the previously downcast and abject
creature brightened up, his eyes sparkling with gratified
self-importance. "_I giornali riparlano di me?_" (So the journals are
talking of me again) he exclaimed interrogatively. The judge disclosed
the object of his visit. Luccheni thereupon dallied with his
interlocutor, smiling at his reminiscences of the crime, assuming airs
of reticence, even indulging in self-contradiction to tease if not
torment his judicial antagonist. It was learned, however, that in the
preliminaries leading up to the assassination he really had
accomplices; beyond this nothing new was elicited from him. The point
of chief importance, however, to be observed in this account is the
large part which vanity and a desire for the widespread public
attention which such crimes bring about plays in reconciling the
criminal to his fate, and even leading to the commission of the crime
in cases where the mental balance is very unstable. Hence this class
of criminals should always be tried and punished with as little
publicity as possible, not only because this policy deprives the
individual of a show, with himself as the center, but also because
every such public trial is liable to lead to the commission of similar
crimes by other mentally unsound degenerates, who are sure to attend
such spectacles whenever it is possible.
=Bounties and Free Trade.=--Much discussion is going on in England
over the question of bounties and the propriety of putting a tariff on
those imported articles which, owing to bounties or other form of
government aid at their place of manufacture, can be sold "too
cheaply." The following paragraphs are taken from an article in the
London Spectator: "In our opinion there can be no question between the
policy of free and open market and the policy of only allowing goods
to be sold here 'at the natural price of the world's market.' We hold
that the maintenance of an open and unhindered market is essential to
our welfare; ... that is the real principle involved, and that is the
ground on which this question of bounties must be fought out. It is
not Cobdenism or free trade that is involved, but that which underlies
them both--the great principle of the free and open market.... We
attach such immense importance to the open market because we believe
not only that our internal prosperity is essentially bound up with the
right, not merely of consumers, but of producers, to buy as cheaply as
they can and where and how they will, but that the empire itself rests
upon the preservation of a free and open market. Mr. Morley never
spoke a truer word than when he insisted that Cobden and Bright and
the old free traders were empire builders. That they were so and that
our empire could not possibly have grown up except with the help of
free trade and a market always open must be clear to all whose eyes
are not blinded by that evil and foolish spirit of commercial jealousy
under which a man, in order to injure his neighbor, wounds himself.
Free trade made our empire possible and created what the world before
had never seen, overwhelming commercial power wielded without jealousy
or narrowness and based on wide and liberal ideas. How long would our
colonies have tolerated the connection with us had we been forever
worrying them with tariffs and excluding this or that product because
it was unnaturally cheap?... As it is, we bid all men welcome in our
markets and none are aggrieved.... Foreign powers may hate us for our
wealth and prosperity, but not one of them would care to spoil their
best market. How would the commerce of France, or Germany, or Russia
get on if England were ruined and the English market destroyed? The
principle of maintaining a free and open market, coupled with our
moral and physical energy, and our liberal aims and aspirations have
given us a great and splendid empire. Are we to risk its destruction
because the sugar refiners grumble, and because the words of Cobden on
another subject may possibly be interpreted to show that he would not,
were he alive, have voted against the imposition of countervailing
duties?"
=Forest and Animal Life of the Catskills.=--The interior region of the
Catskill Mountains surrounding Kaaterskill Junction is assigned, by
Dr. E. A. Means in a paper of the United States National Museum, to
the Canadian faunal region, with a slight mixture of the Alleghanian
in the farming lands on the banks of Schoharie Creek. A few mammals of
the Upper Austral zones, however, such as the New England cottontail,
the deer mouse, and the gray fox, appear to have extended their ranges
into the locality by following up the clearings. Though the region is
now again well wooded, only the barest tags and remnants yet remain of
the splendid forests that once covered the area. All is second growth
except in the rockiest gulches, whence the lumber can not be
extracted, and about the rocky summits of a few mountains of the East
Jewett ranges. While the original forests seem to have been of
conifers, the woods are now very thoroughly mixed, and the succession
of trees according to altitudes, with its strongly marked division
lines, is no longer seen. Specimens of fifty-eight species of trees
and shrubs have been collected and placed in the National Museum. Only
ten species of mollusks, one crustacean (the common crawfish),
probably a dozen fishes (the author identifies eight and mentions
others), eight batrachians, two snakes, and a turtle have been found.
Of mammals, thirty-five species are described as known to occur at the
present time, and eight as of doubtful occurrence now.
=Geology of Block Island.=--In a study of the geology and natural
history of Block Island, of which Arthur Hollick gives a summary in
the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, the most important
problem was whether the Amboy clay series was represented in the
island. Of fifteen species of fossil leaves and fruit capable of
identification, represented by about twenty-five specimens, at least
nine were typical of the Amboy flora. Observations on dip and strike
of strata tended to emphasize the fact of contortion of glacial
action, the dip in all cases being toward the north, indicating that
the strata had been pushed southward in a series of overthrust folds
by the advancing ice front. The flora may be divided physiographically
into that of the hills, the peat bogs and pond holes, the salt
marshes, the sand dunes, and the salt water. Trees are rare, and such
vegetation as is dependent on forestal conditions is absent. The bulk
of the surface is that of a typical morainal region, with rounded
hills and corresponding depressions, many of the depressions being
occupied by swamps or ponds, often without any visible outlet. Running
streams are few and insignificant, and permanent springs occur only in
a limited number of localities. The soil is bowlder till and gravel,
with sand in the dunes and beaches, and there are no outcrops of rock.
The flora is morainal in its general character, except in the peat
bogs and on the limited sand dunes and sea-beach areas, and has its
nearest analogue in that of Montauk Point. "In fact, if we could
imagine Montauk Point to be despoiled of its few remaining trees and
converted into an island it would bear a striking resemblance,
geologically and botanically, to Block Island." Considering the
geological features of Long Island, Block Island, Martha's Vineyard,
and Nantucket, and comparing their floras, we find that all except
Block Island have some of the plain region remaining with them, on
which a characteristic flora finds a home. Block Island has lost all
its plain region and accompanying flora, and is now merely an isolated
portion of the terminal moraine, with small areas of modern sand beach
and dune formations, affording a home only for such species as can
exist under such conditions. The island appears to have been
extensively wooded before it was settled, and large stumps, together
with roots and branches, are found in some of the peat bogs. The
scarcity of animal life on the island is sure at once to attract the
attention of the observer from the mainland. Tree-living birds are
absent, but robins, bank swallows, red-winged blackbirds, and meadow
larks occur with some frequency. Among mollusks, the periwinkle of the
Old World, an importation or migration, is the most abundant. Frogs
and spotted turtles are plentiful, and a few small striped snakes were
seen by Mr. Hollick. The archæology of the island is being studied by
persons specially interested in the subject.
=The Claims of the High School.=--In considering the right of the
public high school to be a just charge upon the public treasury, Mr.
Frank A. Hill, of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, finds
that less than one fifth of the school money raised in the State is
expended on account of these schools, whereas if the number of pupils
in each of the thirteen grades of school was equal and the money was
evenly divided, the higher grades would be entitled to four
thirteenths, or nearly one third of it. To an objection sometimes
raised against the high-school system that the "toiling millions" will
have no use for more than the teaching of the elementary grades, Mr.
Hill asks, Who has a right to decide whether one child shall have a
greater or less amount of instruction than another? "And so freedom of
choice, when the question of what one's life work shall be comes up,
is a basic thing in government by the people. Upon the wisdom of this
choice turns the welfare of each unit in the State, and therefore of
the State itself." Hence the State has no right to refuse to one any
opportunity of preparing himself to exercise this freedom of choice
which it accords to another. There has never been a time since 1647
when the laws of Massachusetts did not require certain towns to
maintain grammar schools, of which the high schools are the modern
equivalents, at public expense, and when the colony became a State a
perpetual obligation was imposed upon the Legislature and magistrates
"to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences and all
seminaries of them, especially the university at Cambridge, public
schools, and grammar schools in the towns."
=Degeneration.=--Dr. William C. Krauss, in a paper on The Stigmata of
Degeneration, describes degeneration as meaning, in pathology, the
substitution of a tissue by some other regarded as less highly
organized, less complex in structure, of inferior physiological rank,
or less suited for the performance of the original function. The same
definition may apply equally well, according to Dr. Krauss, in human
ontogeny, "where we can regard a normal man as possessing a certain
number of units of strength capable of supplying or exerting a certain
number of units of work or force, varying of course according to the
environment, education, and fixity of purpose of the individual. It
would be obviously unfair to compare a professional man or a
brain-worker, whose units of work are intuitively manifold more than a
hand-worker, and declare the latter a degenerate because his force and
energy, as measured by the world's standard, are not as productive as
the former. The questions of money standard and time-worth are foreign
to the laws of degeneracy, and are not to be regarded in any way. The
degenerate must be considered solely and alone upon the physical,
mental, and abnormal stigmata which brand him as an abnormal or
atypical man, and prevent him from exerting himself to the highest
limit commensurate with his skill and development." The author's paper
treats in detail of the various aspects of degeneracy.
=Birds as Pest Destroyers.=--The French journal, _Le Chasseur_, puts
in a plea for the animals that should not be killed. "Why destroy
spiders, except in rooms, while they check the increase of flies? Why
tread on the cricket in the garden, which wars upon caterpillars,
snails, and grubs? Why kill the inoffensive slowworm, which eats
grasshoppers? Why slay the cuckoo, whose favorite food is the
caterpillar, which we do not like to touch? Why destroy the nuthatch
and de-nest the warbler, foes of wasps? Why make war on sparrows,
which eat seeds only when they can not get insects, and which
exterminate so many grain-eating insects? Why burn powder against
starlings, which pass their lives in eating larvæ and picking vermin
from the cattle in the fields? (But they eat grapes too.) Why destroy
the ladybird, which feeds on aphides? Why lay snares for titmice, when
each pair take on an average one hundred and twenty thousand worms and
insects for their little ones? Why kill the toad, which eats snails,
weevils, and ants? Why save the lives of thousands of gnats by
destroying goat-suckers? Why kill the bat, which makes war on night
moths and many bugs, as swallows do on flies? Why destroy the shrew
mole, which lives on earthworms, as the mouse does on wheat? Why say
the screech owl eats pigeons and chickens, when it is not true, and
why destroy it when it takes the place of seven or eight cats by
eating at least six thousand mice a year?"
=The Yang-tse-Kiang.=--In a lecture before the London Foreign Press
Association Mrs. Isabella Bishop describes the Yank-tse-Kiang as one
of the largest rivers of the world, it draining an area of 650,000
square miles, within which dwell a population of 180,000,000. In the
journey to the far East, the scenery at Szu-chuan changed from savage
grandeur and endless surprises to the fairest scenes, with prosperity,
peace, law, and order seeming to prevail everywhere. Erroneous ideas
were often entertained about Chinese social life and surroundings.
China had many trade associations, which were often strengthened by
alliance with guilds. They were composed of men in any particular
trade or employment, who bound themselves for common action in the
interest of that trade. They might rightly be called trade unions,
for through their elected officers they prescribed hours of labor and
minimum wages and made trade rules, the breach of which was punishable
by fine and expulsion. The Chinese people displayed much benevolence
and social kindness one to another, and had societies for providing
free coffins and seemly burial in free cemeteries for the poor, soup
kitchens, foundling institutions, asylums, orphanages, and medical
dispensaries. Throughout the whole of the Yang-tse basin the author
was impressed with the completeness of Chinese social and commercial
organization by the existence of patriotism or public spirit, by great
prosperity, and by the absence of the decay often attributed to the
nation. Of the prevailing "expansion" or territorial robbery fever
Mrs. Bishop said that we were coming to think only of markets and
territories, and to ignore human beings, and were breaking up, in the
case of a fourth of the human race, the most ancient of the earth's
existing civilizations without giving for our supposed advantage a
fair equivalent.
="Somewhat" Poisonous Plants.=--In Prof. B. D. Halsted's paper in the
State Agricultural Experiment Station Bulletins on The Poisonous
Plants of New Jersey, besides the descriptions of plants recognized as
poisonous internally and to the touch, a list is given of "many
somewhat poisonous plants." Among these the catalpa and ailantus
produce emanations that are disagreeable and sometimes poisonous, and
catalpa flowers, when handled, will produce an irritation of the skin.
The thorn of the Osage orange leaves a poisoned wound. The young
leaves of the red cedar and the arbor vitæ are irritating to the skin
and may produce blisters, and the pitch of the spruce causes itching.
Balm of Gilead may cause blistering. The green bark of the club of
Hercules is irritating to the skin. The herbage of oleander affects
some persons like poison ivy, the bark of the daphne causes blisters,
and the juice of the box produces an itching with many persons. To
some the herbage of the wild clematis is acrid and unpleasant. Many of
the wild herbs have acrid properties, among them skunk cabbage, Indian
turnip, cow parsnip, several of the mustards, and the juice of red
pepper and stonecrop. Garden rue and the short bristles of the borage
are irritating. Some persons have had their skin inflamed by handling
the garden nasturtium. Other plants not always pleasant to handle are
meadow-saffron bulbs, garlic, juice of bloodwort and celandine, the
smartweed, the herbage of the poke, monkshood, larkspur, bearberry,
some of the buttercups, anemone, star cucumber, various burs, daisy
flowers, hairy plants, the nettles, sneeze-weed, the corpse plant, and
some of the toadstools. Flax spinners have a flax poison, jute workers
a rash, hop pickers a disagreeable irritation of the hands, and the
grinders of mandrake root find the powder irritating to the face. It
is not unusual for persons who gather plants in field and forest to
receive sensations akin to those produced by mosquitoes, which are
often chargeable to the plants. Other animals than man are less
susceptible to the effects of contact poisons.
=The Dangers of Hypnotism.=--In a review of the medico-legal aspects
of hypnotism Dr. Sydney Kuh inquires whether the hypnotized can be
injured physically or mentally by hypnotization, and whether they can
fall victims to crime. Summing up a number of cases cited as bearing
on the former question, he finds that hypnotism is now generally
conceded to be a pathological and not a physiological condition; that
its use, when resorted to too frequently, is liable to bring on mental
deterioration; that it may be the cause of chronic headache or of an
outbreak of hysteria; that at times it has an undesirable effect upon
pre-existing mental disease; and that in some cases it may even
produce an outbreak of insanity. He has learned of a few cases on
record in which hypnotism was directly or indirectly responsible for
the death of the patient. On the other hand, "we all know that
hypnotism is a useful therapeutic agent practically only in cases of
functional disease which only very rarely endangers the patient's
life." Seeking simpler, less dangerous methods of treating maladies
for which hypnotism has been recommended, the author has experimented
upon the use of suggestion in the waking state, with results that
encourage him. A large series of cases convinced him that a
hypodermic injection of _aqua destillata_, given under proper
precautions and circumstances, so as to impress the patient deeply,
will produce very nearly, if not quite, as many cures as
hypnotization. As for the other question, laboratory experiments
indicate that a hypnotized person may be induced to commit acts
bearing the aspect of crime, but that when the case becomes a serious
one something will most likely occur in the mind of the patient or the
conditions to prevent the consummation. The result is too uncertain
and difficult, and the risks are too many and various, even to permit
the use of hypnotism as an instrument of crime to become common or
really dangerous. And the author's conclusion is that the dangers of
hypnotism lie much more in its use for experimental and therapeutical
than for criminal purposes.
=Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb.=--Of the two principal methods of
instructing deaf-mutes in this country, as defined by Mr. J. C.
Gordon, of the Illinois Institution, in the sign method, deaf-mutes
are taught a peculiar language of motions of the arm and upper part of
the body, to which they learn to attach signification through usage.
For instance, to teach the word _cat_ to a deaf child a sign teacher
would show the child a cat or a picture of a cat. He would next direct
attention to the cat's whiskers, drawing the thumb and finger of each
hand lightly over them. "A similar motion of the thumb and hand above
the teacher's upper lip at once becomes a sign for cat." After the
sign has become familiar the child is trained to write the word cat on
a slate, blackboard, or sheet of paper, and by frequent repetition the
pupil associates the written word with the sign for cat, so that the
written word recalls the gestural sign, and the gestural sign serves
to recall the concept cat. This language is acquired more readily than
any other means of communication. The other method is the intuitive,
direct, or English-language method, and, while it would require the
use of the living cat or the recognition of the picture of a cat by
the deaf child, would connect the written or spoken word directly with
the object, without the intervention of any artificial finger-sign.
Wherever this method prevails the English language in its written or
spoken forms, or in its finger-spelled form, becomes the ordinary
means of communication between teachers and pupils, so that every step
in instruction requires the use of the English language, which is
practically both the instrument and the immediate end of instruction.
All the schools called oral use this method. It can be used in
connection with finger-spelling, but not with the sign method.
=Experiments in Nature Study.=--Some very interesting features of
school children's Nature study--not the teaching of science, but the
seeing and understanding of the common objects of the external
world--are illustrated in a report of Cornell Agricultural Experiment
Station, from incidents of school life in some of the New York
schools. The children in the sixth grade of one of the schools of
Saratoga Springs provided themselves with eggshells filled with earth
and sown with wheat. "The botanical side was made a lesson well
flavored with active interest. The pride of ownership and a plant
coming from a spoonful of earth had the charm of a creation all the
pupil's own, and it was much more real to study the thing itself than
to read about it and make a recitation." Geographical applications
were made by tracing the introduction and extension and transportation
of the crop, and by means of the exchange of correspondence the wheat
belt could be traced and plotted in every State of the Union. The
children of Corning gathered seeds and divided them into classes as
indicated by the means of travel with which they are provided. A small
boy felt himself a profound investigator when he discovered the
advantage some seeds have in being able to float and ride on the
water. It required no hard drill to learn the names. The summer
planting of flowers by the children of Jamestown resulted in a flower
show in the fall. Many children took the tent caterpillar, reared it
from the eggs, and learned all about its metamorphoses. "Nature study
can be made elastic. In the kindergarten it can be idealized so as to
approach a fairy story. It can be intensified so that in the high
school it will have all the solidity of pure science." The best proof
that the idea is bearing fruit is that teachers are asking for
definite instruction on the subject, and a course has been provided
for them. The study should be so informal as not to admit of
systematic examination.
=Chemistry Teaching in Grammar and High Schools.=--At the fourth
meeting of the New England Association of Chemistry Teachers, held in
Boston in January, 1899, preliminary reports were made on
grammar-school and high-school courses in chemistry. The
grammar-school course was defined as intended to give its pupils
first-hand knowledge of the more obvious and important facts and
principles of chemical changes, with emphasis placed on those facts
which are illustrative of the changes that are going on all about the
pupil in the home and in outdoor Nature. While the point of view
should be that of Nature study rather than of science, the selection
of material and method of study should be such as to make the course
of greatest value to those who are to pursue the subject in higher
institutions. For high-school study the report insists that, before
everything else, the course be intelligible to the pupil. Whatever
experiment or work is undertaken, it must be such that the pupil shall
be able to understand its aim and the steps in its pursuit, and it
must not be too intricate in demonstration or abstruse in application.
It should require at least five hours a week, and, if possible, too,
of these periods consecutive, and should come as late in the
curriculum as possible, following physics. The general work may be
divided into the heads of historical, informational (qualitative and
quantitative), and theoretical, the second division having ordinarily
the larger part of the time. The belief is expressed that only part of
the demonstration work should be done by the teacher in the class, but
most of it should be performed, as far as practicable, by each pupil
in the laboratory. Lastly, the report recommends that the humanistic
side of the science be made as prominent as possible. Whenever facts
in chemistry can be related to human life or activity this should be
done.
MINOR PARAGRAPHS.
In a recent report on the educational work of the Passaic (New Jersey)
public schools, Superintendent F. E. Spaulding points out one of the
worst faults of our present public-school system. "The true function
of education is to foster and direct the growth of children, not to
teach so many pages, rules, facts, or precepts of this subject or of
that. And the one adequate rule of practice is constantly to meet the
growing needs of this and that individual child, not to teach this
class of children as a class. From this proposition there follows the
corollary, which is amply substantiated in practice, that the time,
order, method, and extent of presenting any subject can be rightly
determined only by the interest and capacity of the child for whose
benefit it is to be presented, not by the logic and practical
importance of the subject itself."
DR. SIR JAMES GRANT, of Ottawa, has been led, by his studies of the
alimentary canal in its function of discharging the secretions of the
various glands, to a high appreciation of the importance of its
operation in connection with the elaborate and complex nervous system
associated with it. It is reasonable, he believes, to suppose that the
activity of these nerves is injuriously affected by noxious influences
long before any evidence of organic disease appears, and that, hence,
want of care in the digestive process can not and does not fail "to
bring about results of a most telling character in the very process of
sanguinification." Believing that irregularities of the digestive
process in the alimentary canal are more frequent than is generally
supposed, he holds that "the internal sewage of the system" can not be
too critically examined with a view of preventing the ill effect of
toxic accumulations upon the nerve centers. "That the recently
discovered neurones," he adds, "play an important part in the
vitalizing of nerve energy is a reasonable deduction. A path is now
open in which life, under ordinary circumstances, _may be prolonged_,
provided no organic disease is present."
The courses in biology in the University of Pennsylvania have been
arranged with reference to the needs of students who desire
instruction in the biological sciences for general culture, as a
preparation for teaching or original investigation, or as a foundation
for the professional course in medicine. They include in the courses
in arts and sciences the electives, the biology-chemistry group, and
the botany-zoölogy group, each set including several classes; the
four-year course in biology, which appeals particularly to students
who wish to become teachers or to take up special work as
investigators in biology, and the two-years' course in biology, which
is designed especially for those who desire some systematic training
in natural science before taking up the study of medicine. Both of
these courses are open to men and women alike. An ample equipment is
provided for the biological department in the shape of spacious class
rooms and laboratories, a botanic garden, an herbarium, a vivarium,
zoölogical and auxiliary collections, a marine laboratory at Sea Isle,
New Jersey, tables at Woods Holl, library facilities, two serial
publications, and clubs and societies.
We learn from the London Lancet that besides the special ward of
twelve beds at the Royal Southern Hospital of Liverpool, which was
formally opened by Lord Lister on April 29th last, arrangements have
been completed for a school for the study of tropical diseases at
Liverpool. Lord Lister, on the occasion of the school's foundation,
said: "The medical student in the ordinary hospital has rare
opportunities of seeing these diseases, and for a man who is about to
practice in the tropics it is essential that he have opportunities for
studying them here before embarking on his tropical career. The
possession of tropical colonies makes such institutions in the home
country very necessary, not only for preparing the colonial doctors,
but for the protection of the home population, which is sure to be
brought into contact more or less with the infectious tropical
diseases."
An interesting paper by Mr. C. J. Coleman on The Electrical Protection
of Safes and Vaults is described in the Electrical World and Engineer.
He divided the methods into two systems, in one the alarm depending on
the opening and the other on the closing of a circuit--the latter of
the two being the one most in use. Among the curious devices mentioned
are cementing narrow tin-foil strips on the inner surfaces of window
glass, so that any breakage or fracture of the glass will open the
circuit; the use of glass tubes filled with mercury and connected in
circuit, or tubes filled with water or compressed air. In reply to
questions as to the use of electricity in perforating safes it was
stated that a five-ply chrome steel safe, seven inches and a half
thick, was burned through by three hundred ampères in twenty-five
minutes, and holes were burned through a solid block of vault steel
twelve inches thick in twenty-six minutes with three hundred and fifty
ampères, and in fifteen minutes with five hundred ampères.
NOTES.
The Royal Institution of Great Britain, on the occasion of its one
hundredth anniversary, has elected as honorary members the following
Americans: Prof. Samuel Pierpont Langley, astronomer, Secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D. C.; Prof. Albert Abraham
Michelson, physicist, of Chicago; Prof. Robert Henry Thurston,
mechanical engineer, Director of the Sibley College of Cornell
University; Prof. J. S. Ames, of Johns Hopkins University; George
Frederick Barker, physicist, Professor of Physics at the University of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia; and Prof. William Lyne Wilson,
President of Washington and Lee University, ex-Congressman, and
Postmaster-General.
The foundation stone of an oceanographic museum, instituted by Prince
Albert of Monaco, was laid in that city April 25th. The museum is
designed, primarily, to receive the large and valuable collections
obtained by the prince in the voyages of ocean exploration which he
has conducted, and to become a general depository for oceanographic
spoils. The principal address was made by the governor-general, who
glorified the prince's meritorious scientific career. The German
Emperor, who is named a patron of the museum, and the French President
were represented on the occasion by deputies.
The City Library Association of Springfield, Mass., has been holding,
during April, May, and June, an elaborate and instructive exhibit of
geographic appliances of special interest to teachers in the
elementary schools. The exhibition included a number of sets of wall
maps, relief maps and globes, models for use in structural geography,
pictures, photographs, etc., of geographical features, aids in
teaching, geographical texts, manuals and treatises, books of travel,
and an exhibit of geographical work done in the elementary schools of
Springfield and vicinity. The association has also published a brief
Bibliography of Geographical Instruction, which was prepared by W. S.
Monroe, of the State Normal School at Westfield, Mass.
Dr. Daniel G. Brinton has presented to the University of Pennsylvania,
where he is Professor of American Archæology and Linguistics, his
entire collection of books and manuscripts relating to the aboriginal
languages of North and South America. The collection represents the
work of twenty-five years, and embraces about two thousand titles.
Mr. Andrew Carnegie has offered to complete, with a contribution of
£50,000, a fund which Mr. Joseph Chamberlain is trying to raise in
order to make the scientific school the principal department of the
University of Birmingham, England.
A noteworthy experiment in bird protection has been made in a boys'
school at Coupvray, France, by forming a society of the pupils for
that purpose. The president, vice-president, and secretary of the
society are selected from among the pupils of the first division, and
all the other pupils are members. Meetings are held every Saturday
afternoon in March, April, May, June, and July, under the presidency
of the teacher, to hear the reports of members and record the nests
protected and noxious animals destroyed in a notebook kept for the
purpose. In 1898, 570 nests were protected by the school, and more
than 400 mice, rats, weasels, and dormice were destroyed. Such
societies cost nothing, and are capable of rendering great service.
Ernest D. Bell, whose formula for determining animal longevity by the
length of the period of maturity was published in a recent Monthly,
has sent a later communication to Nature, changing his constant from
10.5 to 10.1, the latter figure giving much better results.
The report of Mr. J. C. Hopkins on the Clays and Clay Industries of
Western Pennsylvania is the second one of a series of economic reports
on the natural resources of the State in course of publication by the
Pennsylvania State College. The first report, published in 1897, was
on the Brown Stones of Pennsylvania. The report represents that a
capital of nearly $7,000,000 is invested in the clay industries about
Pittsburg, of which more than $3,000,000 are in the fire-clay
industry. The value of the annual output of material is nearly
$4,000,000, more than fifty per cent of the capital invested. The 139
companies employ 4,403 men.
Herr Hansemann, of the University of Berlin, who examined the skull of
Helmholtz, reports in the _Zeitschrift für Psychologie_ that he found
the head about the size of Bismarck's, and a little smaller than
Wagner's. By metrical standards the brain weighed about 1,700 grammes
with the coagulated blood, and about 1,440 grammes without it--about
100 grammes more than the average. The circumvolutions, which are now
thought to have more relation to mental capacity than mere weight,
were particularly deep and well marked. The skull was 55 centimetres
in circumference, 15.5 centimetres broad, and 18.3 centimetres long,
and the cephalic index was 85.25.
Our obituary list for this month includes the names, among persons
known in connection with science, of Miss Elizabeth M. Bardwell,
Professor of Astronomy in Mount Holyoke College, who died May 28th,
aged sixty-seven years; G. F. Lyster, long Engineer-in-Chief of the
Mersey Docks and Harbor Board, and author of valuable improvements in
the Liverpool docks, member of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and of
the Institute of Civil Engineers, aged seventy-six years; Prof. Lars
Fredrik Nilson, Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at
Stockholm, Sweden, May 14th, aged fifty-nine years; M. Adolphe Lageal,
a French geologist, killed by natives while making explorations in the
French Soudan; Sir Frederick McCoy, Professor of Natural Science in
the University of Melbourne, died in May, aged seventy-six years; he
was a member of the Geological Survey of Victoria, founder of the
Melbourne National Museum, and author of numerous papers on Victorian
geology; before going to Australia he was Professor of Geology in
Queen's College, Belfast, and had already attained a high reputation
as a geologist by the work he had done as assistant to Sedgwick and by
the publication of important memoirs in geology and paleontology; and
Lawson Tait, an eminent English surgeon, author of numerous books of a
high order relative to his profession, and an active worker in
practical sanitary matters; he died at Llandudno, Wales, June 13th,
aged fifty-four years.
Transcriber's Notes:
Words surrounded by _ are italicized.
Words surrounded by = are bold.
Obvious printer's errors have been repaired, other inconsistent
spellings have been kept, including inconsistent use of hyphen (e.g.
"long-continued" and "long continued") and proper noun (e.g.
"Yang-tse-Kiang" and "Yank-tse-Kiang").
Some illustrations were relocated to correspond to their references in
the text.
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Appletons' Popular Science Monthly,
August 1899, by Various
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK APPLETONS' POPULAR SCIENCE, AUG 1899 ***
***** This file should be named 45938-8.txt or 45938-8.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/4/5/9/3/45938/
Produced by Judith Wirawan, Greg Bergquist and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive)
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation information page at www.gutenberg.org
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at 809
North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email
contact links and up to date contact information can be found at the
Foundation's web site and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
[email protected]
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
