random movements of the child (p. 124). The tendency has been to neglect "the means whereby" in our anxiety to reach the end. What is needed is conscious analysis of the former. Owing to the artificial conditions imposed by civilization, we have become victims of subconscious habits and predispositions which interfere with proper functioning. The author's "method is based firstly on the understanding of the coordinated uses of the muscular mechanisms, and secondly on the complete acceptance of the hypothesis that each and every movement can be consciously directed and controlled" (p. 199). In the necessary re-education the subject must first be taught to inhibit the wrong habits and then be guided into "the position of mechanical advantage." The author does "not believe in any concentration that calls for effort. It is the wish, the conscious desire to do a thing or think a thing, which results in adequate performance" (p. 103). The reviewer cannot go into the author's practical methods of treatment which are merely suggested in this book. With the author's personal tact and experience, they have evidently met with marked success. To copy them wholesale would be a violation of the author's fundamental appeal, viz., to "establish communication with reason" as against habit and prejudice. With the general principle of the book the reviewer is in sympathy. "It is our duty now to superimpose a new civilization founded on reason rather than on feeling-tones and debauched emotions, on conscious guidance and control rather than on instinct" (p. 242). This is as true in our group conduct as in our individual guidance.

J. E. BOODIN

CARLETON COLLEGE

Culture and Ethnology. By ROBERT H. LOWIE, PH.D. New York: Douglas C. McMurtrie. 1917. Pp. 189.

This book is designed to acquaint laymen with some of the results of ethnological work. Its thesis is that the interpretation of culture cannot be made from the standpoint of psychology, race, or geographic environment but from the standpoint of culture itself. "Culture," he says, "is a thing sui generis which can be explained only in terms of itself. This is not mysticism but sound scientific method. The biologist, whatever metaphysical speculations he may indulge in as to the ultimate origin of life, does not depart in his workaday mood from the principle that every cell is derived from some other cell. So the ethnologist will do well to postulate the principle, omnis cultura ex cultura. This means

that he will account for a given cultural fact by merging it into a group of cultural facts or by demonstrating some other cultural fact out of which it has developed. The cultural phenomenon to be explained must either have an antecedent within the culture of the tribe where it is found or it may have been imported from without. Both groups of determinants must be considered."

This idea is somewhat like that of Tarde, that the advance of every science consists in suppressing external likenesses and replacing them by internal likenesses. But Dr. Lowie's method is not sound. It means only that cultural facts should be studied from the viewpoint of evolution, and while that is the usual method among scientists it does not exclude psychological, racial, or environmental factors. The influence of "contact" which he emphasizes is in reality an appeal to environment. In the last analysis social phenomena must be referred, as Spencer points out, either to intrinsic factors (psychology) or to extrinsic factors (environment). Dr. Lowie's method is only a convenient way of tracing sequences to those ultimate determinants defined by Spencer.

JEROME DOWD

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

The Play Movement and Its Significance. By HENRY S. CURTIS. Macmillan, 1917. Pp. 346. $1.50.

This volume is the fourth in a series by this author on recreation, the previous titles being "Education through Play," "Practical Education," and "Play and Recreation in the Open Country." Like the previous volumes, "The Play Movement and Its Significance" is a discriptive account of activities in progress in different parts of the United States together with a criticism of those activities. It is not intended to be a discussion of the psychological or larger social aspects of the play movement. The author's aim has been to give a concrete picture of the extent and development of play activities in the United States and the tendencies in control and administration.

It deals primarily with the play of children of school age and only in a small degree with recreation for adults. The necessity of this limitation is consistent with the development of the movement for the provision and control of recreational activities, since this development thus far has been confined chiefly to play for children.

The first two chapters deal with the sources of the play movement and the development of the play movement in the United States. The

chief sources are found in the disappearance of child work and increasing congestion of the population, together with the new social concern for child welfare and a new understanding of child psychology. The chapter on "The Play Movement in the United States" contains an outline for a proposed state law for the establishment of playgrounds.

The chapter on "Play at the School" is a briefer and more general discussion of the main problems discussed in the volume on "Education through Play." Municipal playgrounds are discussed separately from school grounds and from public parks. The author regards the term as an incorrect one and the municipal ground itself as occupying an anomalous position. His criticism of these grounds, in which are included the park playgrounds of Chicago, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Oakland as conspicuous examples, is that while devised primarily for school children they secure a much smaller attendance proportionately than do the school grounds, and that the educational and social purposes of the playground are completely divorced from the agencies in the community which are primarily responsible for educational control. He regards the municipal playground as having its largest usefulness in providing a place for adults and children to spend leisure time without any particular educational purpose. He also finds the problem of political control and racial contact on the playgrounds difficult in the case of municipal playgrounds.

In the chapter on "Public Recreation" a general descriptive account is given of parks, swimming-pools, special celebrations, and the control of activities which are generally commercial enterprises. The treatment is too brief to cover any critical discussion of the social and administrative problems involved in these questions.

The chapters on "Play for Institutions" and "Equipment and Supplies" offer more original suggestions than any other chapters in the volume. Starting with the point of view that all institutions for children might be treated as boarding-schools, a number of very excellent concrete plans are given for increasing the efficiency and "liveableness" of the institution. In the short chapter on "Equipment and Supplies" the unreasonable present costs imposed by commercial companies are discussed. A plan for the manufacture of supplies and equipment by penal institutions is well developed.

The amount of space given to the Boy Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls is out of proportion to the places that those organizations occupy in the recreation of the boy and girl. There are a considerable number of other specialized activities in the form of clubs and other agencies that

could well have been discussed along with the Scout movement and the Camp Fire Girls. The suggestion that the Scout movement should be made a part of the public-school system seems to be a very excellent one. Undoubtedly the movement to have its largest value and a real permanency must be insured of more continuous support than its present method provides. Moreover, since both the Scouts and the Camp Fire Girls movements are essentially educational in character there is no reason why they should not be essentially a part of the established educational institutions.

There is a good outline of "The Recreation Survey," its purposes and methods. The final chapter is devoted to a discussion of the cost of providing recreational facilities compared with the financial saving to the community, which might be accomplished through providing adequate facilities.

The volume is a useful addition to the very limited literature of the recreation movement. It will be found most useful by those who wish a brief summing up of the practices and tendencies in the United States. It has little that is new for the critical student.

OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY

CECIL C. NORTH

A History of American Journalism. By JAMES MELVIN LEE. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1917. Pp. x+462. Illustrated. $3.50 net.

A History of American Journalism by James Melvin Lee, head of the New York University School of Journalism, supplies students of journalism throughout the country with a reference work long needed. Its only predecessor was Hudson's well-known work, which, though it included. much interesting matter, was chaotic in form and brought the history of American newspapers down only to the year 1870 or thereabout. It was, so to speak, only the baby-book of journalism, for the greatest developments of our press have taken place within the last fifty years.

Mr. Lee's book presents a vast mass of information in orderly and intelligible form, and its facts have evidently been sought for and verified from the most authentic sources. Its twenty chapters record the beginnings of our colonial press, tell the story of the partisan press of our early national history, enumerate the most important papers in all the states and territories, and endeavor to distribute as justly as possible the emphasis to be accorded the many and various aspects of so com

plicated a development. As a storehouse of facts and as a book of reference the book is invaluable. But Mr. Lee writes as a journalist, not as a historian. The picturesque details of newsgetting, the "beats," the pony expresses, the personal peculiarities of the great editors, improvements in the printing press, and similar themes interest him far more than the significance of the press in our growth as a people. When he touches upon the larger questions he is facile and genial rather than enlightening. Therefore, when in the last two chapters he discusses "The Period of Social Readjustment" and "Journalism of Today," Mr. Lee presents something like a defense of the modern newspaper, dismissing the charges that it is commercialized and that it suppresses and distorts the news, or refuting them with an easy optimism. It is an optimism which is not shared by many practical newspaper men today. I paraphrase the deliberate judgment of an editorial writer upon one of our larger papers: The social revolution which has already begun in this country will be an accomplished fact long before any intimation of it will be vouchsafed by our newspapers.

The more intelligent young men in journalism are aware of the ineffectiveness of our journals as organs of popular expression and are doing what they can to make the press more responsive to its task. But that certain ominous facts demand frank recognition rather than a complacent and partisan denial is not evident from Mr. Lee's excellent but too amiable work. The author would have done better to make his recent history purely a record of obvious facts and citations of opinions from authority rather than seem to pass in so light and confident a fashion upon problems which no one concerned for the purity and adequacy of our news as a basis for an enlightened public opinion can view without the gravest apprehension.

CARL H. GRABO

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

Self-Surveys by Teacher-Training Schools. By WILLIAM H. ALLEN and CARROLL G. PEARSE. Yonkers, N.Y.: World Book Co., 1917. Pp. xvi+207. $2.25.

Educational efficiency rests ultimately upon the efficiency of teachers; and this in turn is determined by the character and efficiency of the teacher-training institutions. And now that we are attempting to evaluate the results of education through measurement, and the relative efficacy of the different factors involved in the process, naturally we meet with the two relatively new tasks of devising means and methods