From The Saturday Review.
SCIENCE FOR BABES.

thrown off the forms of the older matter called by the name as to despise defini

EVERYBODY is aware of the quarrel tion. Accordingly, in page 5 of the first which is unceasingly waged between the volume (the one appointed for clevendefenders and the opponents of the pres-year-olds) we have a definition of man ent system of school-board education, 'zoologically." though most people perhaps discreetly leave to those directly interested the tasking at the head of the animal kingdom. He is Man is described by the zoologist as standof watching the details of the fight. described as forming the only species in the Everybody, too, knows that schools which order Bimana (two-handed animals), of the now differ from board schools, not so class Mammalia (suck-giving animals), of the much in the character of their education sub-kingdom Vertebrata (backboned animals). as in the fact that the unfortunate parents He is further described as breathing atmoof the children educated are not enabled spheric air by means of lungs; as possessing to put off the expense on somebody else, warm red blood, driven into circulation through are being made the battle-grounds of a his body by the action of a double heart, posquarrel not wholly dissimilar. Shall all sessing two ventricles and two auricles; as the 'ologies be taught? and, if they are by means of milk secreted by the mammary producing living young, and nurturing them taught, what shall give way to them? glands; his skin more or less covered with may be said to be the forms which the hairs and scales; as possessing two hands and question under debate successively takes. two feet, each five-fingered, the nails at their Whether certain subjects have any busi- extremities flat and broad; and as possessing ness in primary education, rate-supported all his teeth even and close to one another, or not, is the first form put into other and his molar teeth equally enamelled. words. Whether it is worth while to disThis is pretty well; and we only hope that the eleven-year-olds will not be led by the metaphorical expression at the opening to conceive the idea of a groom standing at the head of a horse named Kingdom, and that no awkward mistakes will arise from the use of the masculine in describing the process of nurture. Youth is prone to such little errors when its brains are over-driven. But the sentence at least does not contain many words only perhaps a score or twowhich are meaningless to the learner. Further on we come to the real thing.

place Latin and Greek from their pride of
place to make room for biology and phys-

ics, is the second, similarly treated. We

have not seen any book which throws so
much light on both questions, and on
several others into the bargain, as a mod-
est-looking manual, or rather series of
manuals, published by a well-known firm
of Glasgow booksellers. Messrs. Collins
have commissioned the senior science-
master of the Manchester Grammar
School to prepare three twopenny

on

books "Animal Physiology;" and let us hasten to say that, given the conditions of his task, nobody can find any fault with the way in which the author has performed it. Nor, of course, is it the fault of the publishers if these little books deserve to be placed, as there is no doubt they do, in the most damnatory chapter of an Index Expurgatorius by every one who has a respect for childhood, for sound culture, or for the future of the human race. My Lords have settled that certain things shall be taught in certain standards, and the business of the professional person is simply to provide the means of obedience to this ukase. Let us see without further preface what the meat thus provided for English babes is. The books are said to be intended for Standard IV. and the standards superior to it. We believe we are right in saying that a child sent to school betimes ought to reach Standard IV. by the age of eleven or thereabouts, if not earlier.

The new science has not so entirely

The transverse ligament of the atlas binds it to the odontoid process of the axis vertebra, so as to form a pivot joint on which the head rotates. The glenoid ligament helps to attach the humerus to the glenoid cavity of the scapula at the shoulder-joint. The ligamentum teres (round ligament) and the capsular ligament retain the thigh-bone in its socket, the acetabulum.

The emollient effect on the morals of eleven which must necessarily be produced by the learning by heart of this Abracadabra must be truly marvellous.

In the next standard the author majora canit. He explains scientifically the things of common life. Youths of twelve are quite ignorant of what jumping means. He tells them,

sudden contraction of the muscles of the calf, Jumping or leaping is effected (1) by the by which the heels are suddenly raised and the body jerked off the ground; (2) by the simul taneous contraction of muscles which bend the

sion of the legs by the contraction of the extensor muscles; this movement following immediately on the two movements first de

scribed.

Obviously this lucid explanation will be of little use unless (as an instructor of youth who anticipated the method observed) "he goes and does it." The joy of intelligent youth when for the first time it consciously contracts the muscles of its pelvis may possibly be a consolation for the trouble of learning, A young philosopher who can define himself as a person who nurtures his young, etc., and who knows that he jumps by contracting the muscles of his pelvis, is obviously ready for instruction in higher things still. Accordingly, in Standard VI. he plunges full into psychology.

thigh on the pelvis; (3) by the sudden exten- on the brain?" This last is at least practical; and, if the infant be wise, he will reply, "They relieve it remarkably when it has been overtaxed by improper exercise." This, then, is the stuff for the teaching of which, in one rank of life, ratepayers are to pay, and children are to be kept from helping their parents and earning themselves pairs of boots; for which the access to the main keys of true culture is to be barred to those of another class, or vouchsafed to them only in miserably imperfect measure. The education of the future is apparently to consist of getting by rote a jargon which is for the most part meaningless, however carefully explained to the learner, which conveys to him no sort of really useful recreative or stimulant knowledge, which loads and wearies his brain at the time when it should be lightly burdened, and which, to crown all, could be mastered at another time and in another fashion without the slightest trouble by those who have time and vocation for such studies. For the matter of these books, which must cost months of weary labor to children, would not take a couple of days for a welleducated that is to say, humanistically educated young man. All the jawbreaking jargon is clear to him, not by means of dictionary definition, but be cause he is familiar with the languages from which it is derived, and, his faculties being tolerably mature, he can take in such small additional information as there is besides words and names without the least difficulty.

Sensation is the process by which we become conscious through the brain of impressions received and transferred to it by the afferent or sensory nerves. When sensation is excited normally- that is, by external agency it is called objective sensation. But when it arises without any external cause that is, is produced by the unprompted or rather intrinsic action of the nervous system itself it is termed subjective sensation, as in the case of the "ringing in the ears sensation, with which most are more or less familiar, also in the seeing of ghosts as the result of indigestion.

Thirteen or fourteen ought (we speak under correction) to be the age of this future ploughboy or shoemaker. In half-a-dozen lines he knows all about it. Problems of brain and mind, life-studies of Lockes and We need not offer any apology for havHumes, and such-like antiquated people, ing treated a serious subject, in part at theories of the supernatural- there they least, seriously. But the comic side of are, all dried, cut, and crammed by hy- these agglomerations of jargon is sufdraulic pressure into the smallest space ficiently obvious. The man who reads, for him. But he is not to be allowed to even with a fair understanding of the read this stuff and forget it. Not at all. subject, cannot help being reminded of His knowledge is to be tested by ques- the studies which delighted the later Midtions. "What do you mean " (this is a dle Ages. Indignant "scientists" have ten-or-eleven-year-old "you") "by the os- talked about the barren technicalities of seous system, the muscular system, nerv- the Latin grammar, and the invaluable ous system, digestive system, respiratory time lost in acquiring the knack of writ system, circulatory system, absorbent sys- ing Greek iambics. But how poor and tem, and glandular system?" "De- meagre are the technicalities even of the scribe" (the describer is perhaps twelve most technical grammar compared with by this time)" the position, function, and the tropical forest of argot which holds structure of the lymphatic system, tho- the ground of these manuals! Half-aracic duct, lymphatics, lacteals, and mes- dozen names of cases, a score of tenses enteric glands." "What do you mean and moods, a few syntactical terms, a ("you" is thirteen or fourteen now, "si modest bundle of names of feet and Dieu lui a prêté vie," which seems in the metres these make up the easy yoke circumstances at least doubtful)" by nerve- and light burden of As in præsenti and conductility and irritability?" "What its fellows. Half-a-dozen pages of our effect have strong doses of alcohol manual will supply technicalities enough

12

TE

to outnumber the whole.

And if we have rection of Rabelais or Molière. This to compare the time spent in adjusting indeed, as the scientist will probably step cæsuras and avoiding cretic endings with in (like Lamb's Scotch friend) and remark, the time spent in learning to identify and is impossible. Yet M. Jourdain learning define the acetabulum and the sphenoid that when he jumped he contracted the bone, why we shall pronounce unhesitat- muscles of his pelvis would not be uningly for the former. At worst some pleasing. Nor would, we think, the libraprocesses of mind other than mere rote ry of Saint-Victor lack some pleasing memory are encouraged by it, and some- additions entitled from the repertory of thing like original effort is stimulated. these our manuals for the instruction of The getting-up of our manuals suggests youth. And let nobody tell us that Rabenothing so much, as we have already lais was a physician. He certainly was a remarked, as the literary and scientific physician; but he was not a fool.

From The Spectator.

SMALL SAVINGS.

studies of the fifteenth century. We
wonder what the scientists would say if
my Lords authorized such subjects as the
definition of an empérière à triple cou-
ronne, if in the fourth standard it became
necessary to distinguish accurately be-
tween rime batelée and rime à double WE are inclined to think that both of
queue, if the grant depended on the absti- Mr. Fawcett's new schemes for enabling
nence of students from mistaking a bal-poor people to save will succeed. Indeed,
lade balladante for a ballade fratrisée. the little one has already succeeded in a
The one study would really have about as way which has in it, to us at least, a some-
definite a reference both to the probable what pathetic suggestiveness. It is diffi
needs of the students and to the develop cult for the well-to-do to realize that there
ment of their mental powers as the other, are in this country tens of thousands of
and the terminology of Henri Decroy and persons who cannot save so much as the
Eustace Deschamps strikes us as intrinsi- single shilling fixed as a minimum deposit
cally rather prettier than that of Professor by the post-office, yet wish to save so
Huxley and our present author. Or why strongly that if permission is given they
not plunge youth once more into the will slowly accumulate twelve postage
ocean of the later formal logic? Famil- stamps, and pay them into the savings
iarity with this is quite as useful for all bank, instead of the silver coin. They
practical purposes, save those of the pro- can only accumulate by pennies, and even
fessional physician or surgeon, as the when they get pennies they cannot keep
proud capacity to identify a vaso-motor them. If they could keep twelve "cop-
nerve with an excitor-nutrient nerve, or pers," they would have the shilling; but
to distinguish them, for we can undertake either their husbands take their coppers
to earn no grants for anybody in this par- away for beer, or their children beg for
ticular subject. Models, for instance, an them, or they are themselves unable to
admirable study ruthlessly cut off from resist the impulse to spend unless they
modern logic; the various kinds of defi- have placed their small funds in some
nition, the classification and terminology way out of their own power. So they ask
of the indirect moods all these things the post-office for a "form," a cheque
surely deserve a place by the side of the with twelve squares on it, and whenever
investigation of the acetabulum and the they can, buy a penny stamp and gum it
processes requisite to fix upon the youth-on to the cheque. Once gummed on, the
ful mind ignorant of Latin the fact that stamp is destroyed for cash purposes, and
when it raises its upper eyelid it does so can only be received at a post-office; and
by the aid of the levator palpebrarum | so they go on gumming, till the pennies
superioris. We take this last expression reach the amount which the post-office
most docilely from our author, and have will receive. It seems incredible that
no doubt that it is all right. The unre- there should be this combination of pov
generate Latinist might, however, suspect erty and thrift, and yet it is so, for four-
a false concord, for which he himself in teen thousand accounts of this kind have
days past would have run the risk of hav- been opened in a few months in the six
ing unpleasant sensations conveyed by rural counties selected for the trial, and
his afferent nerves to his brain from the the post-office, which on Monday extends
neighborhood of the os coccygis. The the experiment to the United Kingdom,
chief feeling, however, of the mere hu- expects that seventy thousand new ac
manist is an ardent desire for the resur-counts will be opened at once.

Seventy

thousand families are, in fact, expected to | ity, and are aware in thousands of cases be grateful for permission to save up to that "things" once bought go in time of one shilling. So anxious are the poor pressure far too readily to the pawn-shop. people to avail themselves of the new Some men, and more women, of an ecoprivilege that they keep the forms scru- nomical turn, particularly in the mining pulously clean, and although fourteen districts, do, we believe, buy furniture thousand cheques had been received from solid, valuable furniture not because the very poor, each with twelve stamps they want it, but as property on which gummed on to it, in scarcely any case they can raise money if needful: but was a stamp soiled. The "form" with they complain that the pawnbrokers are the stamps on had become property in stingy-which is true, pawnbrokers in its owner's eyes, and was scrupulously such places when the hard times come taken care of. The story reveals great being simply puzzled what to do with all poverty as well as great thriftiness in the the walnut-wood bureaus of a district country, and an amount of self-distrust lodged with them at once - and they see for which even the managers of savings that they get no interest for their money. banks were unprepared. Many of the The walnut wood yields nothing at any depositors may be children-indeed, the time, and when pledged, its owners pay provision of the school pence is, as we interest, instead of taking it. They would suspect, one object in this form of saving like interest. Some clergyman or pawnbut still no one of the comfortable broker in a remote district may possibly classes would have reckoned antecedently be able to correct us, but, so far as we on such a success. The truth is, we do know, there is no class in this country not know what true poverty is, or how now remaining down to which the notion slight, yet how impregnable, are the ob- of interest has not penetrated, and to stacles in the way of the minute saving which it is not attractive. We have never which alone the very poor can attempt. found, in years of inquiry, a single trace They are so slight that the people can of the almost universal sentiment of the hardly see them, and yet, as we have seen, East, that capital and interest are iden they have prevented fourteen thousand tical, the interest being merely an addipersons in a small district of Britain from tion to the capital, as a new legacy might beginning to accumulate, and in the opin- be. The people think it an unearned ion of competent and responsible persons gain - but a product of the money, not do now, at this moment, prevent people an addition to it-and, moreover, a pernumerous enough to fill a large town. fectly fair demand for the use of money, though they are hazy about "fair" interest, and sometimes quite incapable of ascertaining without help, or the actual counting of coin, how much a given sum at given interest will yield. Interest tempts them very much, but they cannot get it, as the better-off do, through a pur chase on the Stock Exchange or a deposit in an ordinary bank. The banker wants too large a sum before he opens an ac count, and the bank itself is, for many of them, much too grand; while they have much doubt about the secrecy which, with many accumulators, is a condition of investment. They would not pay a bill with a cheque, for the world. They know little of public securities, except consols, and nothing of brokers' ways; while brokers are a little averse to such "peddling" custom, and raise difficulties which prevent their applications. They are driven, therefore, either to the savings banks, which give only two and a half per cent.; or if they have a little more money than those institutions wili take, to the most common and most unsafe form of invest ment. The quantity of money which is

As yet, the second experiment, allowing the people to buy consols by 10 at a time, and drawing their dividends for them through the post-office, has not been tested, and the expectation on 'Change of a sudden demand has not been realized; but the device will, we believe, succeed. The very poor will not, of course, buy consols, but there is a class above them to whom the new facility will prove a great privilege. Nothing is better known to those who come in contact with the poorer respectables of all grades and occupations, than the difficulty they find in disposing of a few pounds they have managed to accumulate. They do not like simply to put the money away. Hoarding, though not unknown by any means, has gradually become a practice foreign to our manners, and is even considered slightly reprehensible. The economical people may be robbed of the notes or coin, or may be asked for them, or may be forced by a temporary pressure upon themselves to part with their hoard, which they do not wish. If they buy "things' with the money, they doubt their salabil

I

From Nature.

HOMAGE TO MR. DARWIN.

ON Wednesday, November 3, a depu tation from the Yorkshire Naturalists' Union waited upon Mr. Darwin at his residence, Down, Beckenham, Kent, for the purpose of presenting him with an address expressive of admiration for his long devotion to scientific research, and appreciation of the great and important results to which his investigations have led. Prof. Williamson, F. R. S., of the Owens College, Manchester, who is the president of the Union for the current year, was prevented from accompanying the deputation by the pressure of his professorial duties. The deputation arrived at Mr. Darwin's residence about I P.M., and was received in a most hearty manner by the great naturalist himself, Mrs. Darwin, and other members of the family. The members of the deputation were introduced individually to Mr. Darwin by

lent in England to private persons, coun-
try lawyers, tradesmen, and men in busi-
ness of any kind, on notes of hand at
five per cent., is almost incredible. It is
a regular business with some men to ob-
tain such loans, which they "employ"
successfully or otherwise in their specu-
lations, paying the interest regularly, but
regarding the demand for a return of the
capital as a sort of affront. They will
take any amount, small or great, a single
man, in a case of which we read the de-
tails, having some six hundred creditors,
not one of whom had the smallest secu-
rity, beyond a note of hand; or, we may
add, the smallest distrust about the safety
of the money, which had all been lost in
a speculation. To people such as these,
who number tens of thousands, and dis-
pose in the aggregate of very large capi-
tal, Mr. Fawcett's offer to buy consols for
them, and draw the dividends without
trouble or cost, will be the most enticing
of privileges. They can buy when they
like, in the amounts they like, at a place | Dr. Sorby, vice-president of the Union,
which they are accustomed to, and which and then the interesting ceremony of the
is near at hand, through a broker who presentation of the address was at once
never cheats or deceives. The faith in proceeded with. After a few words on
government in pecuniary matters is, not the work of the Union by Dr. Sorby, the
only in Great Britain, but in Ireland, address was read by Mr. Thomas Hick,
absolute, and like the whimsical but pa- B.A., B.Sc., and formally presented to
thetic confidence felt in the London sti- Mr. Darwin by Dr. Sorby. Replying to
pendiaries as depositors of all legal the address, Mr. Darwin assured the dep-
knowledge and power, forms an odd ex-utation of his deep sense of the honor the
ception to the general tendency to regard
authorities with distrust. Nobody, how-
ever ignorant, doubts that the post-office
will credit the dividends right; and there
is, much farther down than one would
expect, a diffused faith in consols as the
most trustworthy and respectable of se-
curities. The new offer, when once ex-
plained, will, we believe, be accepted on
a scale which will surprise even the office,
accustomed as it is to the eagerness of
the public to put work on it, and perhaps
give rise to important political conse-
quences. No change could be greater
than a general holding of consols by the
well-to-do poor, and none which will more
greatly facilitate the raising of loans.
The lower English have not the wealth of
the lower French, but they have, in the
aggregate, large sums of money to dis-
pose of, and unlike the French, they
hardly ever buy land or put out small
sums on mortgage. The legal proceed-
ings cost too much for them, but they will
go readily through the simple forms pre-
scribed by the post-office, which will very
soon find itself assailed with requests to
raise its rather absurd limit of £300.

Yorkshire Naturalists' Union had conferred upon him on that occasion, and only regretted that he had not done something more deserving of such an honor. He had no idea previously that there was so strong a body of working naturalists in Yorkshire, but was pleased to learn that such was the fact, and to find from the Transactions that had been forwarded to him that they were doing useful work. Coming from such a body, the address was all the more gratifying to him, though he still feared he hardly merited the good things that had been said of him. The address which had been presented to him he and his family would forever treasure and preserve, and he desired to express his warmest thanks, both to the deputation and those whom they represented, for it, and for the kind and considerate manner in which everything connected with it had been arranged. Subsequently the deputation were entertained at luncheon, and having spent a short time in familiar conversation with their hospitable host and his family, took their departure amid mutual expressions of kindness and regard.