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EULOGIUM ON GUSTAVE FLAUBERT.

O novelist has been more universally called "indecent" than Gustave Flaubert. His name has been held up as a synonym of sensual impurity, and his exculpatory claim of having followed "art for art's sake" with high purpose has been indignantly denied by many of his critics, who have quoted against him his own work. Yet he has had and still attracts vindicatory friends whose partizan zeal equals the fury of his opponents. The list of his friendly critics is now augmented by the name of Mr. D. F. Hannigan, who, in an essay in The Westminster Review for October, admonishes us that "all who look on literature as a precious thing which is debased by utilitarian considerations, just as gold is by the admixture of alloy, should honor the memory of Gustave Flaubert," and that "in him we must recognize the typical artist, whose ideal is perfection of form, thorough. ness of workmanship, and unflinching devotion to truth;" that "to Flaubert art was a religion, and from this point of view all true lovers of art, using the word in its widest sense, must recognize in him an apostle and a martyr." Mr. Hannigan's critical review of Flaubert's work is suggested by Mr. John Charles Tarver's new book on the life of the novelist (published here by the Appletons), and is largely a recapitulation of the facts therein contained. In closing his eulogium Mr. Hannigan says:

"As there is a law of progress in the world of mind as well as in the world of matter, we may be sure that the day will come when Flaubert's genius will be recognized by all readers who can lay claim to taste or critical acumen. In the literature of France he will rank next to Balzac as a writer of fiction. Posterity will place him even above Balzac as a master of style. His great historical novel, 'Salammbo,' will be read by all persons of culture with delight when Scott's 'plaster-of-Paris romances' have become mere lumber. If form be essential to literary perfection, Flaubert is entitled to the first rank among prose writers. Moreover, his knowledge of life and character is profound. He studied human nature both in its superficial and its esoteric aspects. His observation is far keener than that of Thackeray, and his analysis is more searching than that of George Eliot, tho it lacks the delicacy and sympathy which we find in Hawthorne. personality he is like Shakespeare. He is wholly free from the bourgeois prejudices of the author of 'Vanity Fair' in favor of certain characters and against others. Perhaps for that very reason he will scarcely ever be read by the average subscriber to a circulating library. But he will be studied by novelists and by critics, and by them—and only by the best of them-will he be thoroughly appreciated. Already he has been the literary parent of Guy de Maupassant, who next to him is the greatest artist amongst the French 'naturalist' school. And the novelists of the future-I mean those worthy of the name, and not mere constructors of puerile romances-will look upon Flaubert as their

master."

IN

WHEN POETS FLOURISH.

In his im

a review of the condition of poetry in America to-day, embracing a glance at the past and a peep into the future, Rev. Dr. D. H. Wheeler, writing for The Chautauquan, October, says that we can not understand our promised harvest of poetry without taking into the reckoning of the value of the promise certain great changes of the last half-century. We quote a part of his

essay:

"Poetry, in 1845, was looked up to as the supreme literary art. It is perhaps no longer such. The history and the novel are now as highly esteemed, and the novel commands the larger audience. We are a nation of readers, but we do not demand poetry to read. When it is good poetry, the better-instructed read it with satisfaction and delight. Is it a decline or an advance that poetry is no longer supremely attractive? There is a theory that we are too practical for poetry; it is said as a commendation of ourselves, and it is said as a condemnation. Then, there is the theory that poetry is a childish delight which the world outgrows. The history of poetry contradicts all these theories. It has flourished most in practical, full-grown, and manly ages and countries.

Every great poem is set forth in periods of achievement and progress. The great mass and dignity of the poetry of the last half-century would be proof to a competent critic who knew nothing else about us that American life was practically successful and full of manly vigor from 1845 to 1895. Poets sing when the world's life is stirring, restless, and progressive. The age of Queen Elizabeth in English literature is our best example. The truth is that a practical age-defined as we must define it to compass our nineteenth century-is an age,of thought and imagination. And such ages are full of poetry."

Dr. Wheeler closes by saying that there is a negative condemnation of certain movements in the silence of our poets respecting them. He notes that our Coxey parades have no Whittier, and that Socialism the world over commands the genius of no Lowell. He advises those who believe that we are on the eve of a great social revolution to dismiss their hope or their fear, and says: "The poets will give us timely warning of any great human movement. When the people gird themselves for mighty revolutions our poets will sound their bugles to announce and to lead the marching army."

Ethics of Translation.-The market-places of literature are constantly besieged by "translators" who have little or no skill in the profession which they seek to follow. Yet many of such applicants readily find employment, and their work finds its way to the shelves of various libraries. Is this because there are so many persons who have no time to spend in learning foreign languages, but who are keen to know something of foreign literatures? This solution is suggested by a writer in Macmillan's for October, who introduces his subject by saying that among the distinctive features of our democratic days not the least striking is the widespread craving for superficial learning. Remarking upon the public patronage extended to unskilled translators, he says: "If this low estimate of the translator's services were confined to the general reader it would matter comparatively little; but it is unfortunately too often shared by the translator himself. There are, of course, conspicuous exceptions; but for the most part the industrious writers who 'do into English' much of the continental fiction read in this country would themselves readily disclaim any very close resemblance to Goethe's noble portrait of the 'interpreter of the nations,' whose office, 'whatever may be said of the inadequacy of translation, is and remains one of the greatest dignity and importance.' With the dignity of their office they are not concerned: they are ignorant of its importance; and the result is that foreign authors are constantly presented to us in a garb so slovenly, that no company that was not serenely indifferent to the quality of literary workmanship would admit them at all."

NOTES.

"WE hear a great deal," says The Critic's Lounger, "about the ravages of the bookworm-the insect, not the biped; and yet we have very slight personal acquaintance with it. Only a handful of people have ever seen one, and I understand only two persons possess one. These two are Mr. Bernard Quaritch, the famous London collector and bookseller, and Mr. E. S. Gorham, of James Pott & Co., the well-known theological booksellers and publishers. Mr. Gorham sent to a friend in Denver a catalog of 'Five Thousand Books,' issued by the Curtis Publishing Company of Philadelphia, and when it was returned he discovered the bookworm. How it got there no one knows. Whether the egg was hatched in New York or Denver is another mystery. All Mr. Gorham knows is that it is a genuine bookworm, and, if one may judge by its appetite, it was a hungry one; for within a fortnight it ate through one thousand titles. The gratification of its appetite proved too much for it, for, starting in on the 1,001st title, it died. The fatal title was that of a famous novel, Adam Bede.""

ACCORDING to Dr. Jón Stefánsson, who contributes to the October London Home, Mr. Ruskin sees very few visitors. At 11 A.M. and 3 P.M. he regularly takes a walk with his attendant. But even then he is so averse to the eye of the impudent stranger that he will turn into the first field, or get over the hedge if possible when the gate is too distant, rather than suffer the irritation of being stared at. He has had some uncomfortable experiences in this way, for irrepressible Americans have gone so far that they have got into the private grounds of the house, and looked in at his study windows, to his great annoyance. He takes his walk in all weathers, be it rain,

be it storm.

The Westminster Gazette says: "A remarkable literary coincidence has it is said, lately been established in Japan. Mr. Miyake Yujiro, a Japanese journalist, has shown that a celebrated Chinese poem, written several hundred years ago by Liu Ting Che, bears a really striking resemblance to The Last Leaf,' by Oliver Wendell Holmes. Only another proof, we suppose, of the ancient writer's dictum that there is nothing new under the sun-not even the verse of American poets, as the genial Autocrat himself was wont to remark."

7

IN

SCIENCE.

PASTEUR AND HIS DISCOVERIES.

N the chorus of eulogy that has poured forth in honor of M. Pasteur since his death, there has been but one discordant note that of Henri Rochefort, who has never had any faith in the scientist's preventive of hydrophobia. On the day after Pasteur's death he printed the following editorial in L'Intransigéant, under the title "To Each His Work":

"It would be in a high degree unjust to deny to Pasteur his None scientific sincerity, his probity, and his disinterestedness. the less true is it that the two chief titles on the strength of which humanity's gratitude is claimed for him-the microbian theory and the discovery of the anti-rabic virus-belong to him only in a very limited degree.

"The idea of seeking in the development or propagation of special microbes the cause of contagious maladies, epidemic or simply endemic, was first conceived, not by Pasteur, but by his forerunner, Raspail, who proposed to destroy the invisible and impalpable vermin then known as animalcules by the use of camphor and other antiseptics.

"Raspail, who was a socialistic Republican and had conspired with the principal revolutionists of his time, was treated as a fanatic and a dreamer by the entire medical body, whose members would have regarded their future as compromised on their practise as ruined if they had pretended to take seriously the principles laid down by a man who had refused the cross of honor offered him by Louis Philippe.

"The day when Raspail undertook, and with success, to give fever to the occupants of a chamber by placing in the window a basin of water and leaving it there to stagnate, the microbian theory was found, and the pharmacies which he established in Paris had no other object than the sale of remedies destined to kill bacilli.

"If there had been no Pasteur, the German doctor, Behring, whose discovery the French doctor, Roux, has taken up and perfected, would probably have invented all the same the virus against croup. If there had been no Raspail, perhaps the question would still be in suspense.

Certainly Pasteur has extended the domain of the investigations begun by Raspail. He has generalized them to the point of applying them to the cure of sheep and other animals; he has 'Pasteurized' drinks. But it was Raspail's genius that gave birth to the idea of such medication.

"As for the manufacture of anti-rabic bouillon based on Jenner's homeopathic system of preventing smallpox-similia similibus-no one having a name in the scientific world would dare to affirm that it has given definitive results. I do not know whether Pasteur's complaint, made to several of his friends, that the more ambitious among those about him went too fast with his discovery and inoculated people in spite of him, has any foundation; but there is seldom a period of three months in which some man who has been bitten by a mad dog does not die in the convulsions of hydrophobia, a few weeks after having been treated at the Pasteur Institute.

"Only recently an unfortunate was seized, on leaving there, with a fit of madness so violent that he tried to bite every one who approached him. The learned Dr. Peter, a member of the Academy of Medicine, has kept an account of the failures of the Pasteur method, and has easily succeeded in demonstrating that the number of deaths from hydrophobia has increased rather than diminished since the substitution of inoculation for immediate cauterization.

"Ten or twelve Russian peasants who had been bitten by a mad wolf came to Paris to be treated at the famous Institute. Shortly after their return to their native land, all of them died of hydrophobia.

"A father and mother whose little daughter had been slightly wounded by the tooth of a dog suspected of madness, took her to Pasteur by the advice of their neighbors, altho the child showed none of the symptoms of the frightful malady. A month and a half after having been placed under the influence of the virus, she fell sick and died in two days, foaming at the mouth.

"These grief-stricken parents came themselves to tell me of their frightful misfortune, which they had no hesitation in at

tributing to the remedies that had been applied to their daugh ter. Yet, as is usually the case, it is not his great and splendid work in rendering meat, drinks, and provisions wholesome, but his pretended discovery of the anti-rabic virus, that has givep Pasteur his popularity. To-morrow he will have a national funeral, and among those who will march in the procession very few will know aught of the dead save his bouillon of rabbit's brains."— Translated for THE Literary Digest.

PECULIARITIES OF THE CRIMINAL.

THE

FEMALE

HE science of criminology has been making great strides of late, and the general public has become quite accustomed to the attitude taken by its chief exponents, who regard the criminal as the victim of a disease, often hereditary, or as suffering from moral malformation. This familiarity of the public with a new and striking conception (whether it is altogether a true one is yet the subject of heated controversy) is largely due to the genius and perseverance of the eminent Italian criminologist, Prof. Cesare Lombroso. Professor Lombroso has recently given, in a book on "The Female Offender," the results of his observations on female as distinguished from male criminals, and draws therefrom some striking conclusions. We quote below a few paragraphs from a review of Professor Lombroso's work by The Hospital, London, October 5:

"Professor Lombroso's theory is briefly that the criminal type is a recurrence to old ancestral forms of low development, ‘a product of pathological and atavistic anomalies;' the criminal in fact ‘stands midway between the lunatic and the savage.' The theory is built up on the observation, not of marked peculiarities stamping the offender with a brand easy to be recognized, but on countless small deviations from the normal type, shared by the criminal population, it is true, in common with many law-abiding individuals, but in a far higher percentage, and especially signifi

cant in combination.

Facial

"The actual physical peculiarities observed among female prisoners are not very numerous or striking. Among them may be mentioned heavy jaws and high cheek-bones. Stature, strength of arms, and length of limbs was found to be below the average, and tho the facial diameter was larger, the cranial diameter was considerably less than in normal subjects. Much of the evil appears to be due to the brain. The post-mortem examination of thirty-three revealed in eleven out of the number 'grave macroPassing to scopic lesion of the central system and its involucra.' skull anomalies, they were found less frequent among female than among male criminals, always excepting the skulls of murdresses, which are peculiar. The skull of Charlotte Corday is cited in this connection as displaying very striking irregularities. "The following small anomalies are among those which have been observed to recur among criminal and fallen women: asymmetry, or a striking want of correspondence between the two sides of the face, has been noticed in 7.7 per cent.; irregularity in the shape of the ears is twice as common among criminals, and projecting ears appear to be more especially characteristic of the swindler and the poisoner; a crooked nose may be noted among one out of every four evil-doers, while tho flat nose is more distinctive of the law-abiding citizen, it is a defect shared in common with a large proportion of incendiaries. A virile physiognomy, combined often with the voice and larynx of a man, were observed also in a large number of female offenders, and certain distinctly degenerate types, such as the cast of face known as the Mongolian physiognomy, and hypertrophy of the muscles of the neck, observable in large quadrupeds, were not wanting. Cleft palate, hare-lip, left-handedness, anomalous teeth, tho common enough among normals, were found to be twice as frequent among criminals.

"The sense of touch, taste, smell, and hearing were experimented on by consent of the prisoners, and were found to be con siderably less acute than in normal subjects. In sense of smell especially the criminal class seems to be singularly deficient, and only three out of fifteen of the born criminals had a normal field of vision. All these anomalies are far less prominent and fre

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quent in females than in males, and the true criminal type is comparatively seldom encountered in women."

The Professor's researches have evidently not conduced to a high opinion of women in general, even apart from the criminal classes, and that "a fund of immorality is latent in every female," that "in the normal female the sense of property is not strong," and that "it is very difficult for women to play without cheating." Passing from these ungallant accusations, we give the cautious final comment made by The Hospital:

"It may be asked what good can result from all this laborious classification of minute characteristics. Much of it, doubtless, is over-elaborated and beside the mark, which is disputed ground, the records of different observers varying in many important points. But the broad facts remain that certain children are born into the world with certain well-defined traits of mind and body distinct from their fellows, and that of these children a large proportion are found in later life to have run off the track and become absorbed in the criminal class. A recent investigation in London schools has shown that the number of these children amounts to 18 per cent. Is there not some reason to believe that wise treatment and special training from the beginning might bring under control the passions of which the bodily anomalies present a faint and often erring index, and save many lives from mischief and ultimate despair?"

RACIAL TRAITS IN MACHINE-DESIGNING.

ALT

LTHO commercial intercourse is slowly unifying the world and wiping out race distinctions, there is more difference still, even between the most closely related peoples, than one would think. No art could be more cosmopolitan, it would seem, than that of machine-design. A cam or a cog is the same whether it be on the Mississippi or the Danube, in London or Vienna. And yet even in machinery racial characteristics crop out now and then quite curiously, as Albert Williams, Jr., shows us in an interesting article in The Engineering Magazine, October, from which we quote some extracts below:

"It is a curious study to trace the manner in which racial peculiarities and environment show themselves in machine-designing, in spite of the growing admixture of nationalities by the transference of engineers and artisans from one country to another, the availability of similar materials, and competition in the same markets. An examination of this kind is not merely a pastime professionally, but may have some practical utility, if it enables us to take broader views, to lay aside local prejudices, and to copy good features and avoid repeating bad ones, in looking over the whole range of construction as practised in different

countries.

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The author next takes up the various nationalities and analyzes their peculiarities in detail, as follows:

"According to accepted notions of racial characters, the English and Scotch are proverbially conservative, methodical, painstaking, and careful to secure durability by using sound material and often an unnecessary surplus of it, making safety a high factor. Their predilection for rigidity, leading to heavy frames and bedplates, sometimes goes to cumbrous extremes. They have not got over a partiality for hand-work where special excellence is desired. Their machines are, as a rule, very reliable. attention is given to appearance and finish, and the machines have an extremely businesslike look, to the American eye overponderous and somewhat clumsy, the idea of construction suited to a great forging hammer or shears being repeated in smaller, fast-running machinery where it seems out of place. machines, their bridgework and other engineering structures are

very substantial.

...

Little

Like their

"The French are quick, sensitive, innately artistic in all their perceptions, particular as to details and finish, and somewhat given to an inordinate desire for originality of effect leading sometimes to bizarre designs; their products, however 'showy,' are never absolutely unsightly. Attention is given to the appearance of tools and implements intended for the simplest and most homely purposes. Hand-work is preferred to machine-work, partly because it is cheap enough to compete with the machine tool, and partly because of the abundant supply of intelligent, skilled artisans in the lower grades.

"The German designer, always well grounded in mathematics, calculates stresses and proportions minutely, but in the outcome does not shave so closely as the Yankee. He never allows himself to be hurried, and, in everything made for the home market, is conscientious. In the proportioning of parts with an eye for effect, he produces curved lines and rounded masses, reminding one of the drawing of the old Flemish and German artists, and which somehow fail to convey the idea of precision given by sharp angular contours.

"The American regards time and money as of the first importance. Labor is dearer than abroad, and while there is a large stock of inventive genius, there has been relatively a dearth of skilled operatives of the lower ranks―plenty of good foremen and men competent to manage complicated machinery, but few who (at the wages) could take the place of the machines. Hence we find a preponderance of labor-saving devices, machinery supplanting hand-work in unexpected directions, for making and even assembling interchangeable parts, for handling materials and products-a strict division of labor (of which the watchmaking and shoemaking industries are good examples) with the final result that American artisans turn out more work per capita than average workmen elsewhere, so that the employer can afford higher wages, whether for day- or piece-work, and can generally select his operatives.

American peculiarities are strongly marked. The best ones. are directness of design, by which is meant the shortest cut to reach a given end, the designer having in mind the thing to be done quite as much as the machine which is to do it; lightness and a close proportioning of parts; in machine-work a near approximation to pattern; rapidity of construction and rapidity of action in the finished machine; the substitution of special steels and new alloys, hollow construction, etc., for older materials and construction; and a generally neat appearance of work, with burrs, lips, and roughness of casting removed. The American designer is not an artist, like the Frenchman, but is more attentive to appearance than the Briton. He is gradually curing himself of the tendency to tawdry ornament, needless accessories of fancy castings, stenciled paints, japanning out of place, bright work for mere effect, etc. We are not an esthetic people, whatever we may pretend to others and to ourselves; other people take pains to inform us of the fact, so there must be something in it. The worst fault the American designer is accused of by the English competitor is a skimping of material down to the lowest notch. This is not, as a rule, deserved; yet there have been enough instances to give occasion to the charge."

Disappearance of Rubber-Producing Plants.-"M. Dybrowski, Professor of Colonial Agriculture at the Institut Agronomique, Paris," says The National Druggist, "has called the attention of the French Government to the rapid disappearance of caoutchouc forests in all the equatorial regions of the globe, and warns, not only France, but all other countries having tropical possessions, that unless some preventive steps are taken at once, the time is close at hand when all of the various indiarubber producing plants will have disappeared from their native haunts. Already,' he says, 'in India the spontaneous production has diminished in an alarming manner. Already, too, in all forests of the more readily reached portions of Africa, the rubberproducing lianas have absolutely disappeared. They have been ruthlessly destroyed in all the coast regions, and day by day the destroyers (the gum-gatherers) must penetrate deeper and deeper into the primeval tropical forests to obtain the world's supply. When one thinks of the importance of the rôle played by indiarubber in the arts and industries, and of its almost indispensability in electrical science, the cause for alarm becomes very manifest. M. Dybrowski urges France and England to lend all possible encouragement and aid to the culture of rubber-producing plants. Experiments, instituted in the Kongo region, in the cultivation of a shrub, the caoutchoutier of Ceara, have given brilliant and gratifying results, and it is urged that they be extended."

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DO WE THINK WITH OUR WHOLE BODIES?

IN

N old times mental faculties and emotions were commonly localized, the heart being regarded as the seat of affection, the bowels of compassion, etc. This localization, altho it still colors our common language and our literature, has disappeared from sober thought except in one instance the head is still almost universally thought of and spoken of as the seat of the mental processes. There is reason in this, of course, for the brain is the largest nervous ganglion and dominates all others; yet the others must still be taken into account, and ultimately it is hard to avoid saying that every part of the nervous network has its share in the mysterious process called thought. This idea is elaborated (The New Science Review, October) by Paul Tyner, in an article entitled "Thinking All Over," portions of which we quote below. Mr. Tyner takes as his text the words of St. Paul, "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost." Regarding this he says:

"The whole body it is that is the temple of the living God; not the garret alone, nor the basement, nor any of the many stories that lie between these two. All are intimately related, marvelously interdependent; no member or function of the body can be entirely healthy while another is diseased. This is a familiar fact of every-day life, yet the average man persists in regarding the organs and members of the body as distinct and separate in the individual organism, as the anarchist seems to regard the various parts in the social organism."

After emphasizing the fact that to develop or use any part of this body at the expense of other parts is suicidal, he goes on as follows:

"The brain, according to a popular, altho unscientific notion, is peculiarly the 'thinking machine.' And this popular notion probably accounts, in large degree, for the prevalence of inordinate head-thinking. It may be worth while, therefore, to remind the reader of the fact that the brain is not the originator of perceptions, impressions, or thoughts; but a receptive and reactive agent, or rather one of several centers (and not necessarily the most important) of a great receptive and reactive agent so completely enveloping human anatomy that nowhere on the surface

first gives life to that citizen. Altho the population of the United States has about doubled since the close of the war for the Union, it is extremely doubtful if half the number of men fit for fighting that were then enrolled could be enrolled to-day. Changed conditions of industry, or rather the failure of men to change with the times, are responsible not only for this serious showing in the direct effects on the men employed in the various industries, but also for an indirect effect of even more far-reaching importance, through the sacrifice of the mothers of the nation in mill, factory, and shop."

It is unnecessary to say that athletics, in its best forms, finds an enthusiastic friend in Mr. Tyner. With him the sarcasms of those who point out that the body and not the brain is developed by many of our college students have no force, since he regards In conclusion he says: body and brain as one.

"In religion, in education, in science, in politics—in the social as in the individual life-there is need, and crying need, of fuller and more vivid realization of the fact that the brain, altho an important center of the thinking and feeling mechanism, is not the whole of it; that the life and vigor of the brain are even more dependent on the life and vigor of muscles and nerves, blood and We are called upon by the lungs, than are these upon the brain. dangers and errors of the times, no less than by the compulsion of progress, to prove the faith that is in us; to realize vividly that if it is true that 'as a man thinketh so is he,' it is even more true that as a man doeth so is he, and that, after all, it is our doing that makes further thinking and further progress possible. It is only by doing always and everywhere the best we know that such doing becomes the natural, easy, and pleasant habit, and character is formed. Every experience, every impulse, every emotion leaves a physical record and tendency in the brain and The difnervous system as a whole-that is to say, in the man. ferent parts or areas of the brain are thus developed, and what was potential becomes real. Each part, once made alive by use, and made to work in harmony with all the other parts, continues to act and react automatically upon the slightest stimulation."

A SURE TEST OF DEATH.

of the body can so much as the point of a pin be placed without THE English public has been having a little scare over precoming in contact with it. This is, of course, the nervous system, of which the brain is simply a great ganglion. All impres. sions of the exterior world, all consciousness, come first through the sense organs, and by the impact on these of etheric vibrations. Of these, touch is at once the most universal, the subtlest, and the most accurate. Ancient Oriental writers only anticipated modern science when they declared that touch was the first sense developed by man on the physical plane, and that it contains in potentiality all the other senses that have been developed by man, and that are yet to be developed."

As touch is a sense that resides everywhere on the surface of the body, it is evident that this whole surface performs one of the first and most important offices in the chain of nervous processes corresponding to thought. Mr. Tyner continues:

"Curiously enough, it is those we commonly call the 'thinking classes' who are most guilty of ignoring and neglecting the laws which plainly require for the fullest and most wholesome thinking the whole man, and not the brain alone; which demand that right thinking should be thinking all over.

"

In other words, Mr. Tyner goes on to explain, these classes habitually neglect the exercise and physical culture necessary to the development of the whole body, wrongly supposing that the brain may be kept in healthy and normal condition by itself. He

resumes:

"So, as one result of unbalanced thinking and consequent unbalanced doing, if the nation, to-morrow, had to summon her sons to her defense, it would be found impossible to muster into service as 'able-bodied men' more than one fifth of those who should be available, and who would be available if as a nation we recognized the plain fact that the life which we demand of the citizen in time of need will not be forthcoming unless the nation

mature burial, a subject that seems never to lack in interest when a sensation is desired, and tho the medical authorities have been strenuously denying the possibility of mistakes of this kind, except under extraordinary conditions, the matter continues to be ventilated in the public prints. In this connection, W. S. Hedley writes to The Lancet (October 5) that what seems to be an infallible means of distinguishing real from apparent death has been quite generally overlooked. This test depends on the fact that an electric current is able to contract the muscles for only a few hours after death, all excitability of this kind ceasing thereafter. We quote below what he has to say on the subject: "Forty years ago the subject was investigated by Crimotel, twenty years later by Rosenthal, and more recently by Onimus. It seems safe to say that in no disease, certainly in none of those conditions usually enumerated as likely to be mistaken for death, is galvanic and faradic excitability abolished in every muscle of the body. On the other hand, electromuscular contractility disappears in all the muscles within a few hours after death (generally ninety minutes to three hours according to Rosenthal); its persistence varying to some extent with the particular muscle examined, and with the mode of death. Therefore, if electromuscular contractility be present in any muscle it means life or death only a few hours before. It is clear that no interment or post-mortem examination ought to take place so long as there is any flicker of electric excitability. To me it seems almost equally obvious that in all doubtful cases, sometimes in sudden death and often to allay the anxiety of friends, this test ought to be applied, and applied by one who is accustomed to handle electric currents for purposes of diagnosis."

THE French Republic gave Pasteur a life annuity of 12,000 francs ($2,500) for his discoveries, chiefly for those bearing on fermentation.

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IT

THE CHILD'S SCIENTIFIC METHODS.

T is assumed by many persons that scientific method belongs to man's maturer years, and that the child's way of learning must always be "childish" as opposed to systematic and sound methods. But those who study the unfolding of the mind are beginning to realize that "the child is father to the man" as well in intellect as in other respects, and that the child's mental processes are capable of being made as systematic by proper training as are those of the adult. This fact is brought out by Prof. Wilbur S. Jackman, of Chicago, in reviewing a recent text-book of science for children (The Educational Review, October). Speaking of the author's evident belief that the child should only observe, while it is reserved for the youth to make deductions and for the adult man to generalize, he says:

"This conception of an epochal development of the mind is at the bottom of more bad-science teaching than any other. Mental activities are not detachable from one another. Observation, as an educative process, can not exist without appropriate deductions and the immediate formulation of a hypothesis. The teacher who continually preaches to his pupils, 'Don't generalize,' 'Don't draw conclusions,' 'Make no hypothesis,' is placing himself squarely against the mind's natural movement. The only point upon which pupils need to be warned is that the hypothesis must be held subject to instant modification in the light of new and further investigation. The author insists that in the earlier stages there be 'no comparing, no generalizing.' Utterly impossible! We know things only through their relations, and these can be determined only by comparing. Altho he wars against generalizing, yet in the very first year's work he selects certain animals because they are typical of large classes; in the second year he directs the presentation of typical leaves. But a typical form, a figment of mind, really, is but a generalized form; and by the continued and artful selection of these forms the teacher deprives the pupil of the chance to reach a true generalization by the correct process, which requires the examination of the greatest number possible of individuals."

Gutta-Percha from Dried Leaves.-"A new enterprise that it is claimed will largely increase the output of gutta-percha," says The India-Rubber World, as quoted by The Canadian Druggist, "is the collection and export of the dried leaves of the gutta tree. At first a few small packages of leaves were forwarded to Paris and once there an excellent quality of pure gutta-percha was extracted, the leaves yielding from seven to ten per cent. of their weight of the manufactured article. Mons. F. Hourant, who sent the leaves to France, after some difficulty succeeded in getting the natives to work systematically at the collection of the leaves, and now they are being exported in quantities which increase from month to month. He has erected a factory at Kuching for the purpose of thoroughly drying these leaves before shipment. The advantages of this method are evident. The natives formerly cut down a tree to obtain the sap, and from this, if it were an adult tree twenty-five to thirty years of age, there was obtained one catty of pure dry gutta. Fully as much can be obtained from two pluckings of the leaves of the same tree without injuring it, for it will long continue to put out fresh foliage, and, what is more important will live to seed and reproduce its species. This is an important point, as the best gutta trees do not bear fruit until thirty years of age. The gutta obtained from the leaves is also pure and dry, which is much more than can be said of the ordinary Dyak gutta. already been destroyed by the native gatherers are also still of service, as their stumps have sent out numerous small shoots, and, tho these are too small to be tapped, their leaves are as good

as those of the adult tree."

The millions of trees that have

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graph office in that city has been entirely free from electrical disturbances, in marked contrast to preceding years, when the blowing of fuses and the burning of instruments were matters of very frequent occurrence. 'He states," says The Engineering Magazine in an abstract of the article, "that within a few miles of the city the electrical storms have been more frequent and more destructive the present year than ordinarily. He suggests that the extension of trolley-wires throughout the city during the past two years may explain the phenomenon. There can be little doubt that such is the case. It would be difficult to contrive a more effective means of equalizing excessive electric tension between the air and the earth, which is the accepted cause of electrical disturbances, than a network of suspended trolley-wires, grounded not only at each end, but through every car in transit upon the route. So effective is this protection that a seat in a trolley-car is probably the very safest place in the world during a thunder-storm. Nor is it worth while to jump overboard in case the lightning blows out a fuse and creates an explosion, as the passengers did one day in an open car in Boston; if one has time to jump, the danger, if there was any, has passed away."

Toads in Solid Rock or Wood.-The editors of Natural Science have evidently no patience with the oft-repeated stories of the finding of toads within solid rock or wood, or with the credulity of those who give such stories credence. They say in their issue for October: "No doubt it is the silly season, when editors are so put to it for copy that they have little time to revise what matter comes to hand; but our esteemed contemporary; The Daily Chronicle, surely had no need to fall back upon the exceedingly ancient error concerning the vitality of toads. Under the title 'A Remarkable Release,' they recount how some workmen in Bedfordshirę, cutting up the trunk of a large oak uprooted during a recent storm, came across a toad embedded in the heart of the trunk, about eighteen feet from the root.' 'The imprisoned creature, which must have subsisted for some years upon the sap, was about half the size of a fully developed toad, and readily swallowed the worms, earwigs, and beetles which were given to it.' It should be needless to recall the old experiments of Dean Buckland and others. By adopting the expedient of burying toads so sealed up that they could obtain moisture and air but no food, they found that toads were unable to live more than a few months without food. As a matter of fact, toads habitually conceal themselves in crevices and holes. In cases

where they are found in tree-trunks, stones, and so forth, either the hole by which they entered has been entirely overlooked, or they got in when they were very small and grew healthily upon earwigs and other insects that had sought similar concealment. We have no doubt that if the workmen had examined the inside of this particular toad they would have found the remains of a more nutritious diet than the sap to be obtained in a hollow trunk."

SCIENCE BREVITIES.

NATURE PRINTING.-"This process," says E. M. White, in The Photogram, "should commend itself to all who study botany and other branches of natural history, inasmuch as it enables faithful and accurate copies of specimens to be made without the aid of a camera. The method of working is as follows: We shall want a printing-frame, a piece of good stout glass, free from flaws, cut to fit the frame; and some gelatino-chlorid paper Having procured a specimen, such as a spray of maidenhair fern, or, as in the example, a skeleton poplar leaf, we place it in the frame behind the glass, and over it a piece of sensitive paper (care must be taken to place the flatter side of the specimen against the paper); expose the whole to a bright sun until the background, or uncovered portions of the paper, have darkened as much as they will; then take the resulting negative print, and tone to a good non-actinic tone, such as chocolate; fix in the ordinary wash and dry as in a print. In printing a positive it is only neces sary to place a new piece of paper in the frame in contact with the negative print, using the glass as before, and print in bright sunlight. The printing, of course, takes a long time, owing to the light having to permeate through the paper."

manner,

"FOR Some time past," says The Scientific American, "gilded or silvered tulles have been in the market. According to Mr. Villon, the following is the process of preparing these fabrics: The tulle is immersed in a one-percent. solution of nitrate of silver. After a quarter of an hour it is dried and then plunged into a solution of Raschig salt. This latter is a potassium salt of sulfonated hydroxylamin. The nitrate is immediately reduced, and the silver deposits upon the fibers in impermeabilizing them. It then only remains to dry the tulle, wash it, and dry it anew. This done, it is covered with gold or silver in a galvanic bath formed of double cyanid of potassium and gold or silver. The same process may be used for silvering or gilding other fabrics."

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