REVIEWS

History of Commerce and Industry. By CHEESMAN A. HERRICK. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1917. p. xxv and 562.

"Arms and the man" is no longer the refrain of the historian, but it is still all too frequently the theme of the history textbook. Human nature has constant elements; but human behavior is as varied as the situations which are its conditioning elements. Historians recognise this truth in their endeavor to chronicle the changes in environing conditions which underlie human development. These conditions are multiform, and historical change may be described from the standpoint of any significant grouping of these conditions and of the activities they breed-political, commercial, industrial. School histories, reflecting the growing differentiation of educational provision, often with vocational leanings, give evidence of corresponding variegation of treatment. A happy consequence is likely to be a speeding of the transition from the older fashioned textbook emphasis on the idiosyncrasies of kings to a fitly modulated description of organised activities and social institutions.

Mr. Herrick's book illustrates this wisely deflected sense of values. Beginning with a chapter outlining some fundamental conditions of trade and industry, including special consideration of prominent aspects of these pursuits in ancient and medieval times, he covers in rapid succession salient features of the economic life of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Greece and Rome. This matter covers six chapters. The following seven chapters deal with the medieval period, and the succeeding seven with the modern period down to the Industrial Revolution. Of the remaining fourteen chapters, one deals with the Industrial Revolution and three cover the economic history of the United States. The remaining ten deal with virtually contemporary commercial and industrial

development in the British Empire, Germany, Russia, China, Japan, Latin America, and the United States.

The text is serviceably illustrated, and usable questions, problems, and bibliographical references are appended to each chapter. The twenty-two well executed maps are for the most part well-chosen. A sense of proportion which allows maps of Parcels Post Zones, Federal Reserve Bank Districts, and Federal Land Bank Districts to be included, might, however, be criticised as a bit defective.

But, after all, the reading of a thoroly good book of this sort gives rise to one serious misgiving. Is it really worth while to hurry pupils thru a diverse and lengthy array of data aiming to tell something about so many things? Might it not be better to limit attention to selected epochs and attempt to develop a vivid picture of significant aspects of activity in these epochs? Might not such a plan afford pupils a background of knowledge that would really serve in the interpreting of things contemporaneous?

ROSWELL C. MCCREA

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

School Efficiency. By HENry E. Bennett. Boston: Ginn & Company. 1917. 374 p. $1.25.

A volume of 374 pages, written for "the teacher of average ability in an average school of average opportunities."

The treatment is divided into thirty-one chapters, the scope of which may be indicated by some of the headings, i. e., The School Grounds, Buildings, School Housekeeping, Health Responsibility of the School, The Course of Study, Organization of the School, Promotions and Pupil Progress, Reports to Parents, The Daily Schedule, Getting Started Right, Eliminating Waste in Teaching and Study, Motives and Incentives, Constructive Government, Corrective Government, Community Cooperation, the Teacher Rights and Duties, Teacher Self-Management. Supplied with an accurate index and a working and workable bibliography, this little volume is an admirable handbook for the young teacher.

At the same time, the author points out the way by which the necessary prescriptions incident to the beginnings of a profession may lead to the higher reaches, in which only can the reasons for the prescriptions be found. In addition, Mr. Bennett in a most charming manner points out the way to spontaneity and leads the reader to grasp for himself the great principles of teaching and management.

The author's work is so uniformly excellent in the treatment of the problems presented that it would be invidious to select any particular chapter for praise or blame. It would, however, have been particularly helpful to the teacher if in the chapter on Promotions, he had gone more into detail so as to illustrate the principles upon which promotions rest.

Phrased excellently, properly balanced, lucid in explanation, authoritatively sane in its progressive conservatism, this volume is a most valuable addition to the teachers' professional literature.

Mr. Bennett is too modest in his preface, for the contents of his little volume will be a source of information and comfort to the teachers of teachers as well as to the average teacher in the average school.

BOSTON, MASS.

FRANK A. FITZPATRICK

Students and teachers of public law, of politics and of international relations will not overlook the literally invaluable Survey of international relations between the United States and Germany, by James Brown Scott, Director of the Division of International Law of the Carnegie Foundation for International Peace. This volume, based upon official records, is an absolutely indispensable book of reference in the study and discussion of current affairs. (New York. The Oxford University Press. 1918. 390 p.)

In Handicaps of childhood, H. Addington Bruce, who is the author of a number of books on educational and psychological subjects, has made a readable book for teachers and parents that contains a good deal of helpful suggestion. (New York. Dodd, Mead & Company. 1917. 310 p. $1.50.)

In commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the publishing house of Ginn & Company, Professor Ernest C. Moore, newly elected president of the Teachers College at Los Angeles, California, has written an agreeable essay summing up the educational progress made in the United States since 1867. We can not share the author's enthusiastic belief that it was reserved for this very late period for man to discover that real education is and must be based upon the nature of the child, or that purposive education is a new discovery. We should also dispute the . statement that the doctrine of formal or general discipline has been scientifically tested and found wanting. It has not been scientifically tested and it has not been found wanting, simply because all human history and all human experience are not to be overturned by a few quite irrelevant laboratory experiments. Monkeys may be trained without this doctrine, or machinery may be constructed apart from it, but man can not be educated except by it and thru it. (Boston. Ginn & Company. 1917. 96 p.)

While the publishing house of Ginn & Company has been celebrating its half century, that of Harper Brothers has been taking note of the close of a hundred years of fortunate and successful existence. A memorial volume of great interest has been issued to mark the event. It is entitled The Harper centennial, 1817-1917. (New York. Harper Brothers. 1917. 106 p.)

The seven laws of teaching, by the late John M. Gregory, is an old book but a thoroly good one. We are very glad to see it appear in a new and revised edition, but with all the solid substance and persuasiveness of its original form. (Boston. The Pilgrim Press. 1917. 122 p. 75c.)

A not very profound book, altho useful to certain types of teachers' training classes, is The science and the art of teaching, by Professor Daniel W. LaRue of the East Stroudsburg (Pa.) State Normal School. (New York. American Book Company. 1918. 336 p.)

A Plan to Save Money

NOTES AND NEWS

In a pamphlet with the title, Saving New York City One Million Dollars Annually on Secondary Education, a plan is set forth by Charles M. Stebbins, grade adviser in Erasmus Hall High School, for a readjustment in high schools, whereby what the author considers enormous waste may be overcome to the advantage of everybody educationally concerned and to everything economically involved, including the public treasury. The total expenditure for instruction alone in the public high schools, he points out, is approximately five and a half million dollars annually. A very large amount of this vast sum, he insists, is worse than wasted, in that it is spent on superfluous instruction, which, as facts can be adduced to show, tends to impair the health of pupils, produces mental nausea, and creates a distaste for education on the part of a very large number of capable boys and girls. New York City, he adds, is neither worse nor better than other cities, and no one person or body of persons is to be blamed; it is a condition that has resulted from the manner in which the present secondary school curriculum has developed. The writer asserts further that at least twenty per cent of the cost of instruction in the city's high schools is pure waste. The claim is based on the results of experiments in secondary education conducted in the Boys' High School and Erasmus Hall High School of Brooklyn during the past twelve years. The experiments were undertaken, it is stated, not with a view of saving money for the city, but for the purpose of saving the pupil from failure, and of meeting more adequately the needs of individual pupils with respect to their abilities and aptitudes. The results of these experiments showed, however, that what saved the pupil time and discouragement invariably saved the city a proportionate amount of expense.