results are often artistic. Finally, the low-priced concerts which are being given in increasing numbers, and the generosity of music lovers who sometimes send the school tickets for the opera, afford the girls opportunities to hear a real orchestra and real artists render the compositions they have studied.

In the classroom, the immediate results of the work are noteworthy. Every girl feels that it is her work, that she is an active participant. Therefore, her interest in her language work is quickened and her effort proportionately stimulated, for she realizes that she must perfect her tool, the language, in order to accomplish much. Thus the whole class is "alert and active," not merely "passive and receptive." From the teacher's point of view, the work has proved itself of immense value. By the use of records and slides and pictures, the appeal is made thru the ear as well as thru the eye. Besides, the work necessitates self-reliance and self-directed activity, which gives the students a foretaste of research methods which may stand them in good stead later. Then, by means of the note-book, the girls' instincts for selfexpression and for collecting are afforded full scope. To the girl, this book is the concrete embodiment of the work which she herself has done. In other words, she has produced something, something which will be of value to her after her highschool career is ended. But most important of all, the course has afforded her an insight into the world of music, and has given her an interest which usually grows by what it feeds on. It has opened to her a vast new cultural field, part of the cultural heritage of the race.

WASHINGTON IRVING HIGH SCHOOL

NEW YORK

ALMA JOACHIMSON WEISS

REVIEWS

An Introduction to High School Teaching. By S. S. COLVIN. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1917. 451 p. $1.60

An introduction to high school teaching is a simple, definite and thoroly practical textbook, admirably adapted to the needs of beginning teachers. It is not only a treatise on good practise in teaching: it is an illustration of it. It has a definite problem. It tries to make this problem challenge the student. It proceeds from the known to the unknown, from the concrete to the abstract. It almost insists on the application of its suggestions in the classroom.

The chapters on discipline, methods of the classroom, questioning, lesson-planning and supervised study are in direct answer to the main problem, "What ought the beginning high school teacher most of all to know in advance of entering upon his profession?" The opening chapters on the modern American high school, its pupils and teachers, are designed to show the student the worth of the problem and to make it challenge. No principle is advanced without adequate data to support it, nor does it stand alone. It is flanked by many illustrations. No abstract question is raised without warning. It is first made clear by several stories of classroom happenings, illustrating its presence or absence. More than one-third of the book consists of descriptions of classroom situations, gathered from hundreds of observations made by the author. Frequent summaries and cross-references provide for review and comparative study. Concise suggestions at the close of each chapter, coming with direct reference to classroom situations previously cited, make application of the principles involved almost certain.

This teachable book should be welcomed by all teachers of secondary education. The fact that it is simple, definite and adapted to the needs of beginners, should make it no

less useful to teachers of experience. Principals and superintendents will find it excellently adapted to the needs of faculty meetings. Anyone interested in problems of teaching can study it with profit.

It is only to be wished that the book were twice its size. It would then have been possible to include more stenographic lessons, assignments, and examination questions. Appendix C could then have been greatly expanded, and much more space could have been given to a discussion of individual instruction and to scientific methods for measuring the results of teaching. Possibly these may come in a later work.

IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY
IOWA CITY

WILLIAM F. RUSSELL

The Scientific Measurement of Classroom Products. By J. CROSBY CHAPMAN and GRACE P. RUSH. Boston. Silver Burdett & Company. 171 p. $1.25

Theories and practises in education are grounding more and more in scientific method. This new book, listed above, shows a clear recognition of the scientific spirit. At the beginning it sets up the claim "that the greatest contribution which has been made to education in the last ten years is the application of scientific measurement to school products." In the past, the measures of results have been the opinions of teachers exprest mostly thru marks of percentages, letters A, B, C, and the like. These are as variable, inaccurate, and unscientific as human opinions can be, and furnish almost no basis of comparison, especially of school with school. Within the last decade numerous attempts have been made to discover some objective measures for education which might in accuracy approximate the weights and measures of the objective world. To many it may seem idle fancy to suggest any possibility of a yardstick or pound weight for measuring school products. Yet some scales approaching definiteness have been devised, and we may confidently anticipate many new ones from this decade.

One trouble has been that these scientific scales have been too widely scattered in various pamphlets for the average public school teacher to gather them together, and often too complicated with statistical methods and data for such a teacher to use with satisfaction. This book goes after both phases of this trouble. It gathers together such scales as those of Ayres, Ballou, Courtis, Hillegas, Starch, Thorndike, and others, for the measurement of results in arithmetic, handwriting, reading, spelling, composition, and drawing. It presents these simply and clearly for the elementary teacher, and gives directions for their application. The exercises at the end of each chapter are very suggestive, and the appendix gives a list of sources from which may be obtained the scales in full, also any standard blanks needed for making tests with these scales.

This small manual should be in the hands of every elementary teacher and of every supervisor of elementary schools. The use of these scales will bring satisfaction and improvement to most teachers trying them out, and also these scales will furnish new and definite stimuli to pupils to improvement.

The above review calls for like mention of another new and similar book, Educational tests and measurements, by Monroe, DeVoss, and Kelly, published by Houghton Mifflin Company. This latter book is larger, fuller, and includes measures for some high school subjects, also chapters on Statistical Methods, The Meaning of Scores, Tests and Examinations, and Tests and Supervision. This book is also simple and clear, the two books being excellent companions beginning, we hope, a new era for judging school work more scientifically.

UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA

T. J. WOOFTER

We are not greatly imprest with Teachers' problems and how to solve them, by Dr. Kenneth S. Guthrie. The method of the book is not satisfactory, since it is too fragmentary and too cursory to be of great value, either in the schoolroom or out

side.

(Grantwood, N. J. Comparative Literature Press. 1917. 170 p. $1.10.)

A most excellent piece of work which deserves recognition from specialists in the history of European law is Roman law in the modern world, by Charles P. Sherman of Yale University. The three volumes are most valuable for serious students of legal history. (Boston. The Boston Book Company. 1917. 3 vols. 413, 497, 315 p.)

A short history of science, by Professors Sedgwick and Tyler of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a good book, but it ought to have been more attractively written in view of the distinction of its authors. For this reason it will not be found very easy to read, while most excellent for reference. Unusual and very striking material will be found in the appendices, including the oath of Hippocrates, Harvey's dedication of his work on the motion of the heart and circulation of the blood, and the record of Galileo's appearance before the Inquisition. (New York. The Macmillan Company. 1917. 474 p. $2.50.)

Mr. Alfred M. Hitchcock of the Hartford public high school is the author of A new composition and rhetoric which is practical and useful. The use of illustrations is novel in a book of this type and they are well done. (New York. Henry Holt & Company. 1917. 576 p. $1.25.)

We have commented before on the increasing number of Latin books that are appearing and we are very glad to call particular attention to an especially excellent one. This is A beginning Latin book, by Albert S. Perkins of the Dorchester (Mass.) high school. Mr. Perkins has made an interesting experiment in what he calls vocational Latin. This book will illustrate in general how it has been done. His method of building up a vocabulary is admirable and his use of the direct method of language teaching very sugtive. (Boston. Benjamin H. Sanborn & Company. 1918. 432 p. $1.20.)