The book emphasizes consistently that most important turn in the affairs of political theory which has brought it into closer touch with the sciences and made the novel range of the volume both possible and plausible. It is in a manner its main thesis and principal significance. There has emerged within political science during the past generation, says Professor Merriam, "an objective and scientific attitude. The various disciplines of natural and social science have gradually converged their lines upon the problem of human nature and conduct and specifically on the political nature, psychology, or behavior of man; upon the analysis of the constituent elements in the process of political control." Political science, in fact, has reached out from the speculations of abstract theory, and with its new emphasis on the empirical method has a definite place for any science which can help toward a technical knowledge of the political process. The same thesis is stated on its negative side in Professor Barnes's article on "Contributions of Sociology":

While political scientists have been virtually agreed that a state must embrace as essential elements population, territory, property, and sovereign power, they have done little more than assume these as metaphysical entities, and with the exception of elaborate dialectical discussions of sovereignty, they have not proceeded to a concrete description and analysis of these fundamental factors in the state in such a way as would indicate their direct bearing upon political action, or would furnish any real guide to the statesman.

It is interesting to note that the discussion of sovereignty itself by Professor Coker pays tribute to this new method of approach. But in his excellent article Professor Coker does more. He holds a most admirable balance between the old attitude in political philosophy and the new, and steers a wise course between the distorted state doctrine of the formalists and the inadequate guarantees of pluralism pure and simple. He seems to hold with Professor Barker and Professor Lindsay in his later doctrine that Hobbes's "command of the militia" does stand for something after all, and that the state guarantees, in the last resort, the method of settling differences. This permits him to acknowledge the value of the intellectualist theories of the state without minimizing the need for an empirical study of the various institutions which go to form it. "Sociology," he notes, "has been the most effective corrective of the older formal approach."

The greatest single pleasure of the book-if style and wit still count for anything in political science-is Professor Hankins' chapter on "Race as a Factor in Political Theory." Professor Hankins' refutal of the Aryan and Teutonic myths has a gusto which ought to lay these specters for

good. It is difficult enough for them to survive before a scientist whose nose for inconsistency is so sensitive, but it is well-nigh impossible where there is a cut and a gibe in every quotation. It is more than fitting that Professor Hankins should have a hand in a work such as this one. For where there is so much emphasis on science there are liable to be only too many who will take its name in vain. The new tradition can very well argue its way against the metaphysical, but except it have the aid of ridicule, how shall it prevail against its own amateurs?

CHICAGO

JOHN GRIERSON

The Story of Human Progress. BY LEON C. MARSHALL. New York: Macmillan Co., 1925. Pp. xv+548. $1.48.

Chapters in Social History. By HENRY S. SPALDING, S. J. New York: D. C. Heath & Co., 1925. Pp. xv+457. $2.00.

An Introduction to Sociology and Social Problems. BY WALTER GREENWOOD BEACH. New York: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1925. Pp. xiv+369. $2.25.

Freedom to choose a wife from among all the daughters of Eve is a wider range than is open to teachers in selecting textbooks for beginners in the social sciences. For some time, however, publishers have been busy reducing the distance between the extremes in this contrast. Whether to prefer one or another among meritorious elementary textbooks in social science has become not a calculus of absolutes, but largely a matter of taste on the one hand, and of psychoanalysis of the particular pupils to be taught on the other. Important work has been done of late by experienced educators, in combination with eminent specialists in the different social sciences, upon the problem. How may secondary and collegiate education be most enriched by introduction of better-planned material on the humanities' side? This question has been studied with reference to the needs both of pupils who may not extend their schooling beyond the secondary-school level, and of those who may continue through college or even graduate school. One would have to be either very ignorant or very rash to venture to scale the relative virtues of the textbooks now in the market offering material for a course or a curriculum designed to meet the demand. Without committing myself to invidious comparisons between rival books, I feel safe in saying that any school or school system might make a highly praiseworthy experimental contribution to the problem by making a place in its program for adequate use of the three books above

mentioned, and in the serial order in which they are scheduled. They are adapted to somewhat different grades of maturity. They direct attention to somewhat different phases of human experience. The effect of using the three in the order indicated would be cumulative. Together they would of themselves exert an immeasurably liberalizing influence, and they would serve admirably as preparation for profitable advance into more generalized studies, such as those introduced-in sociology, for example-by books on the level of Blackmar and Gillin, or Case, or Park and Burgess.

I do not forget that it is utopian to imagine American school authorities, public or private, not Roman Catholic, indorsing the use of a textbook written by a member of the Society of Jesus. That would be almost as naïve as to imagine one of William Jennings Bryan's pocket boroughs approving a biological textbook written by an evolutionist. I have indicated my judgment of the desirable, not of the probable.

ALBION W. SMALL

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Problems of Child Welfare. BY GEORGE R. MANGOLD. Revised Edition. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1924. Pp. xviii+ 602. $3.00.

Education of Gifted Children. BY LULU M. STEDMAN. Chicago: World Book Co., 1924. Pp. viii+192. $1.80.

How Foster Children Turn Out. A Study by the State Charities Aid Association. Made under the direction of SOPHIE VAN SENDEN THEIS. Publication No. 165. New York: State Charities Aid Association, 1924. Pp. 239. Price $1.00.

Sex for Parents and Teachers. BY WILLIAM LELAND STOWELL, M.D. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1924. Pp. xx+204. Price $1.50.

Mangold's treatment of child problems, revised, doubtless continues the most inclusive textbook in use for classes in child welfare. So far as the reviewer is capable of judging, the historical and statistical phases of the book are above reproach. But on controversial questions of theory, the author exhibits sometimes ignorance of recent contributions to knowledge, and sometimes superficiality. An example of the first is shown in the use of such concepts as "moral imbecile," "born criminal" (p. 235), and "instinctive criminality" (p. 412). His attitude toward the juvenile

court illustrates the second tendency: "In some juvenile courts no other charge is placed against the child except that of juvenile delinquency. Under these conditions it will become increasingly difficult for the public to learn the precise nature of the offense committed. The author does not approve of this tendency" (p. 416). Under the circumstances, one is surprised to find Healy's books in the bibliography. They might be expected to convince the author that it will profit the public more to understand its own part in motivating delinquency than to classify types of acts committed.

The belief that children of superior mental ability are potential geniuses, in position to contribute immeasurably to social life if adequately directed, led to a five-year experiment by Miss Stedman at the University of Southern California Training School. Several "opportunity" classes were formed for children of seven years and over whose intelligence quotients ranged from 125 to 214. Sixteen case histories, with graphs and tables, show the progress made. Instruction based on individual differences stimulated each child to study independently, in a scientific attitude. At the same time, the use of group research projects in public speaking, dramatizing history, etc., promoted intellectual exchange and social interaction. An enriched curriculum, covered, with little drill or repetition, in less than the usual number of hours per day, was preferred to a "speeding-up" which would catapult children into high school three to five years early. The sociologist finds of greatest interest the conclusions that (1) gifted children trained at home for several years come to school with richer and more mature personalities than normal children of the same age. (2) Such gifted children adapt themselves very easily to ⚫school life with other children of their own mental level, with few exceptions. (3) They are no more conceited, egotistical, or vain than average children, with occasional exceptions; and (4) some gifted children who are maladjusted to other schoolrooms can become socially co-operative through "opportunity room" methods.

The New York State Charities Aid Association investigated the success records of 910 children placed in family homes who had reached an age of eighteen years or more on January 1, 1922. Of those who could be found, 77.2 per cent were judged "capable" in the sense of able to manage their own affairs and maintain standing in their communities. In view of the adaptability of this 77.2 per cent, the sociologist is interested to learn that 80 per cent of the total came from bad families, 12 per cent from

"mixed," and 8 per cent from good background; that the homes in which they were placed were 72 per cent good average, 13 per cent below average, and 15 per cent above; and that a larger proportion of the group placed at an age under 5 became "capable" (86 per cent) than of the group over 5 at placement (72.6 per cent). "There exists in individuals an immense power of growth and adaptation. ... there were potentialities within these people which revealed themselves only under certain conditions . . . . the primary condition of successful development lies in the kind of relationship between the child and his foster parents . . human environment matters more than the material surroundings. . . . the child's adjustment to his foster family governs to a significant degree his adjustment to society, and his adjustment to his foster family has less to do with their standards of comfort and their place in the community than with their human qualities and their understanding" (p. 164). The difficulties of such research are obvious throughout: The data are hard to secure; the criteria of success and failure are as yet only crude pragmatic ones; and no statistical presentation could do the subject justice. A supplement should be published composed of five or six complete life-histories of the successful cases, including complete description of the foster families and the communities in terms of the social forces operating.

Sex for Parents and Teachers is a medical man's attempt to serve a dual purpose. He thinks parents need facts, and must have idealism to present them properly. His program thus involves on the one hand a scientifically accurate, but not highly technical, biological approach to sex facts, progressing through plant, insect, fish, bird, and animal to human reproductive processes. Plates picturing generative organs of lily, corn, bee, man, and woman, and development of the human embryo are explained in detail. Mendel and the Edwards family tree serve their usual purpose. Ductless glands and hormones and diseases of sex organs receive notice. The author's second purpose is served by chapters interlarded indiscriminately on "Man," "Puberty," "Marriage," "Eugenics," "Purity," "Sex Education," and "Habits." By these he conveys a conventional though not harsh social philosophy-little more. The use of such a presentation and some imagination on the part of parents might perform the "salvaging" process so much desired by Dr. Davenport in The Salvaging of American Girlhood.

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

EVELYN BUCHAN