REVIEWS

Education According to Some Modern Masters. By CHARLES FRANKLIN THWING. New York: Platt & Peck Company, 1916. 296 p. $2.00.

This latest work of President Thwing's proves to the reviewer a difficult book to criticize. The fact of difficulty is, however, clearer than the reason for it. The work undertakes to present the educational ideas of Emerson, Carlyle, Ruskin, J. S. Mill, Gladstone, Newman and Goethe. The method is the presentation of copious extracts from the published works of the several "masters" together with pertinent comment and explanation by the compiler-author, the aim being to construct a fairly connected account of the position of each person treated.

But why should such a book be difficult to review? we may imagine the reader asking. At least one reason is the uncertainty as to what one should expect to get from Carlyle, let us say. Is one to find ideals or procedure for the guidance of current education? Such a question, it will be said, is beside the mark. Not specific guidance but the widening and clarification of ideas-this we should get. But if this be granted, and it certainly seems plausible, the difficulty of the reviewer is but shifted. No one would deny that each of the writers treated has won a greater place in the world's esteem than at least the large majority of contemporary writers on education, yet somehow the treatment under consideration fails to grip one immersed in modern educational thought. Why is this? Is President Thwing's presentation at fault? We can not think so. We can not think so. The method to be sure is not an easy one, but once chosen it is difficult to see how it could have been better done. Is the failure to appeal due to the systems portrayed? Perhaps there are no systems to portray? In the case of more than one of the writers treated it may well be questioned that his ideas form a sys

tem. Ideas, yes; a system, no. But even yet the difficulty is not fully explained.

Perhaps more fundamental as an explanation of a certain disappointment is the great change that has come into educational thought since these men wrote. Masters tho they be, the great upheaval of thought due to the doctrine of evolution has since their time so revolutionized our whole sociological and psychological approach that education as a subject of study has almost remade itself within the past two decades. Even the permanent problems are differently conceived and the efforts at evolution move often along very different lines. Perhaps also with the conscious progress towards a scientific treatment of education has come a certain impatience to see quick and specific returns from any investment of time and energy spent in study. Not every one intent on present problems will see such a return from the study of this book. That there is danger in such a tendency does not suffice to deny the fact.

All in all, it seems then probable that even this unusually painstaking study will not find a wide circle of readers. That this should be so, many will regret. We are sure, however, that President Thwing feels himself already repaid by what has come to him from the intimate association with such a company of thinkers. While others of like tastes will be grateful to him for making thus readily available this new insight into these great men whose thoughts they have so long studied.

TEACHERS COLLEGE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK

Janus and Vesta: A Study of the World Crisis and After. By BENCHARA BRANFORD. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1916. xviii. 316 p.

Mr. Branford is one of Hermione's little group of serious thinkers. Mr. Marquis has not edited him yet, but he will presently. Meanwhile, earnest minds that can not wait for the definitive Sun Dial version should study Mr. Branford's

philosophy in this first edition. It is unexpurgated and unabridged.

With all the good will in the world and every wish to be fair, a reviewer must necessarily be unjust to this author, for it is impractical to catalog and impossible to comment upon the infinite variety of intellectual reactions which Mr. Branford offers. There is nothing of current interest, ancient or recent history, or apocalyptic hope, that he does not set forth in his own inimitable way. Selection we must make, and with an uncomfortable feeling that we shall choose without rhyme or reason, we will mention four of Mr. Branford's (apparently) most fateful contentions.

Rome worshipt both Janus and Vesta, or rather Vesta (the older, of matrilinear extraction) and Janus (the younger, of patrilinear extraction), q. e. d. Roman civilization developed on wholesome domestic lines, and (q. e. d. again) the world should now become "a simple, human family, a household writ large." To develop, however, "the genuine cosmopolitan, or world citizen," and "a world order of honor" it will be necessary first to found a world university, because "a progressive balance and a balanced progress are the indispensable conditions" of "supreme synthesis" and these are goods which our local, state and national universities manifestly can not deliver. The world university should be founded on an island, preferably in the Eastern Mediterranean. Among its functions would be "to re-right world history as well as to re-write it; to fix a universal origin for world history dates; to organize a truly representative world library; to consider the adoption of a universal money;" and "to select from ancient or existing tongues a world language.' The university would of course "evolve world science," and the first step "might well be the erection of the great terrestrial globe designed by Reclus for the Paris Exhibition of 1900." It would send forth sages, organizers, architects, artists, journalists, arbitrators, teachers and missionaries, men and women alike.

Of all these alumni (and alumnæ) the arbitrators would be supremely important. Their task would be to establish

justice based upon Herbert Spencer's definition of liberty, or the freedom of every man to do what he will if he infringes not the equal freedom of every other man. Such arbitrators can and must be "produced by training," altho here and there one will be found "who partakes of the nature of the true poet" as one born and not made. On the strong foundations of justice, laid and maintained by the arbitrators, the sons and daughters of the world university would rear the edifice of statecraft. There are two systems of political principles. By following the principles of Machiavellism the nations have precipitated the present world crisis. By substituting the principles of Franklinism (discovered and proclaimed by Benjamin Franklin) mankind will go forth from "wardom" into "peacedom."

Mr. Branford's style is worthy of his large and variegated thought. The reader intent upon mastering both should heed the advice of Lagrange quoted (in italics) in the preface: "Read backwards and forwards, in the belief that it will repay careful study."

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS

An Introduction to Educational Sociology. By WALTER ROBINSON SMITH. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917. 412 p. $1.75 net.

Educational sociology is undoubtedly the branch of pedagogy that is destined to make the most conspicuous growth during the next few years. For some time the psychologist has blazed the trail of educational progress; but it is now becoming evident that the profounder problems of education are sociological as well as psychological. The chair of sociology must accordingly be placed on a par with the chair of psychology in all institutions where teachers or educators are trained. Dr. Smith's book is the most conspicuous contribution to the literature of this subject that has yet appeared.

This work is in two parts: Part I, Sociological Foundations; Part II, Educational Applications. In Part I, Professor Smith undertakes a sociological analysis, following the

lead of Cooley. He reviews (Chapter II) Cooley's discussion of the relation between the individual and the social order, pointing out certain educational implications. In Chapters III and VI he interests the reader in Cooley's primary groups: the family, the play group and the community. From these chapters one may gather (a) the informal educational function of these groups, (b) the necessity for cooperation between them and the school, and (c) the school's responsibility in training for participation therein. Various other institutions of society he classes as intermediate groups, and devotes a chapter (VII) to them. Under The State and Education (Chapter VIII) he subsumes a discussion of the four aims of education: vocational, social, cultural, and political. The last two chapters of Part I are devoted to the growth of democracy, the function of education in it, and the influence of democracy upon the educational development of the past century.

In Part II the writer applies sociological principles to such problems as administration, discipline, the curriculum in general, vocational training and guidance, the place of the fine arts in education and methods of teaching and school management. There is also a chapter on The Social Survey, which, he urges, should furnish data for the administrator's guidance in adapting his school to social needs.

This book is intended as a rather elementary textbook for the use of college and normal school classes; and for such purposes it is the best book in the field, except perhaps one, Betts's Social principles of education. Dr. Smith's book is the more overtly sociological of the two. Certainly any class that is put thru this text thoroly will acquire the sociological point of view in educational theory; and the teacher himself will find a great many things that he never thought of before. Professor Smith has performed a worthy service in preparing this text.

If one were to offer a criticism it would be that the work lacks philosophy. For instance, scarcely any notice is taken of the educational philosophy of Dr. John Dewey, which, in intention at least, is nothing if not sociological, and which