Croyances, rites, institutions. Par COMTE GOBLET D'ALVIELLA. Paris: Paul Geuthner, 1911. 3 vols. Pp. xx+386; 412; 386. Fr. 22.50.

It is a pleasant custom of distinguished European scholars, when approaching the close of a long period of intellectual activity, to collect and publish their numerous fugitive papers-reviews, essays, and minor monographs. These gesammelte Schriften are not without utility at a time when the multiplication of special journals has made it almost impossible to keep up with the periodical literature of even a modestly limited specialty. Count d'Alviella's work has evidently been suggested by the appearance of the Cultes, mythes, et religions of Salomon Reinach (3 vols., Paris, 1905-8), which bring together many "chips" from the workshop of that encyclopedic scholar. The two collections cover substantially the same ground. A mere glance at their tables of contents discloses the remarkable progress made during recent years in a field of research for which "social anthropology" is tending to become the accepted name.

In Croyances, rites, institutions, Count d'Alviella gives us the "gleanings" of thirty-five years of unselfish, persistent devotion to anthropological and sociological studies. We welcome its appearance, though, to be quite frank, we believe that judicious compression might have reduced these three portly, well-printed volumes to two, or even to one, without sacrificing anything of permanent value. Many papers in the collection originally appeared as book reviews which were not so much critical comments on the authors' views as lucid summaries of the authors' arguments. All this was valuable enough in its time, but, in most cases, a student today gains little profit from reading estimates of works which themselves no longer represent the latest conclusions of his science. The count, moreover, has merely reprinted his earlier papers, without making any attempt to revise them and to bring them up to date. In general, we should say that the greater part of this collection will prove more valuable to the future historian of social anthropology than to contemporary scholars who are grappling with the concrete problems of the science.

Count Goblet d'Alviella, a senator of Belgium and a professor at the University of Brussels since 1884, is rightly reckoned among the pioneers in the historical and comparative study of religions. The Hibbert Lectures On the Origin and Growth of the Conception of God (1892) and the Migration of Symbols (English translation, 1894) are perhaps his bestknown works. He belongs to the English school of anthropologists and

gratefully mentions among his masters Tylor, Spencer, and Max Müller. In 1911 he still remains faithful to the general principles of interpretation which, following his masters, he had begun to set forth as early as 1876. At the same time, he has a hearty welcome for the researches of the younger generation of students and recognizes the value of their work in elucidating such subjects as magic, totemism, and taboo. If he fails, anywhere, rightly to appraise the value of recent work, it is in his treatment of the French sociological school represented by Durkheim and his colaborers on the Année sociologique.

The eighty papers in these volumes are classified roughly under three headings: (1) hierography or the descriptive history of religions (including archaeology); (2) hierology, dealing with problems of comparative religion; and (3) hierosophy, chiefly devoted to general essays in the philosophy of religions. The following papers seem to the reviewer of special importance: Tome I-"Archéologie et histoire religieuse. Hiérographie": "Moulins à prières, rues magiques et circumnambulations," pp. 1-24; "Les roues liturgiques de l'ancienne Egypte," pp. 25-40; "Archéologie de la croix," pp. 63-81; "Quelques réflexions sur la persistance et la transmissibilité des types iconographiques," pp. 105-17. Tome II-"Questions de méthode et d'origines. Hiérologie": "L'Animisme et sa place dans l'evolution religieuse," pp. 109-24; "Des origines de l'idolatrie,” pp. 125-47; "L'Intervention des astres dans la destinée des morts," pp. 328-39. Tome III-"Problèmes du temps présent. Hiérosophie": "Religion et superstition de la vie," pp. 327-46; "Sur l'histoire de la science des religions,” pp. 347–66. HUTTON WEBSTER

UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA

Why Women Are So. By MARY ROBERTS COOLIDGE, PH.D., author of Chinese Immigration, Almshouse Women, etc. New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1912. Pp. viii+371. $1.50. The author herself has characterized her book as "a first-hand study of the ordinary, orthodox, middle-class woman who has constituted the domestic type for more than a century," answering the question: "Is the characteristic behavior which is called feminine an inalienable quality or merely an attitude of mind produced by the coercive habits of past times ?" As a working hypothesis she assumes that women have been "what men expected them to be," that sex traditions rather than innate sex character have produced what is called 'feminine' as distinguished from womanly behavior." Here

is the old question and the modern hypothesis of much theorizing, but Dr. Coolidge has made a definite contribution to the subject by this intensive study, limited to the average American woman of the nineteenth century from about 1840 to the present.

The body of her argument is presented in a rather exhaustive examination of the domestic traditions which have surrounded women, beginning with the "conventions of girlhood." From babyhood the girl had an ideal of personal appearance, manners, even of virtues, held up to her which differed entirely from that of a boy. She early learned that it was most desirable to be pretty, well dressed, docile, and physically delicate, and that she was not expected to be courageous, reasonable, or thorough. With the coming of the factory era and of cheap household service, production in the home almost ceased, and the girl received little real domestic training. Her schooling covered only the common branches with a smattering.of so-called "accomplishments," she was not expected to use libraries, and popular literature was of the sentimental-story or fashion-magazine type. Physical exercise or outdoor sports were quite unknown to her, and her leisure time was given to piano-playing and the "spurious industry" of fancywork. She grew up with the understanding that it was her destiny to marry, but she received no preparation for the duties of a wife and mother and when they came to her she was too commonly both mentally and physically unfitted for them. The domestic life which absorbed her was a monotonous repetition of petty details or of "made" work, invented to fill up idle hours. She lacked the education to enable her to lift her work out of the trivial, and tradition forbade her to interest herself in anything outside the home. The average woman was petty minded, incoherent in thought, absorbed in detail, limited to personal interests, all characteristics of the work she did and the life she lived. Trained to seek masculine approval in everything, since she must marry and be economically dependent upon her husband, she naturally cultivated the arts of pleasing even to the point of deception, and as naturally devoted herself to the cult of beauty and fashion that sprang up with the coming of an age of surplus wealth when a man's social status could be most easily shown by his wife's clothes and entertainments. Incidentally Dr. Coolidge contributes an interesting item to social history in her account of the growth of the influence of fashion and its commercial importance taken in connection with the increasing cheapness of fabrics.

In the section on "Some Exceptions" Dr. Coolidge treats of the elect ladies who were called out of the home into missionary, temperance,

and philanthropic movements, of the struggles of the pioneers for higher education against the "phantom of the learned lady," of the early insurgents against legal and political limitations, and of the eager, untrained "literary amateurs," each of whom she draws sympathetically but with full recognitions of their limitations, which she traces to their source in traditions.

The concluding chapters are somewhat in the nature of addenda, touching on certain features of present conditions, and the outlook, under the captions "The Significance of Femininity," "Family Perplexities," and "Larger Life and Citizenship." Most studies of sex characteristics by men have laid too much stress on physiological characteristics. The most recent and the broadest studies, however, do not disprove the hypothesis of the book; many uphold it. The transitional nature of the present time for women is seen most vividly in the unrest in family life, the increase of divorce, the lack of social standards. Complete readjustment can be looked for only when educational methods are fully adapted to present conditions and women have at least relative economical independence.

If Dr. Coolidge's study is not conclusive, as in the nature of the case it cannot be, it is at least very convincing. Women are "amateurs in the game"? Granted, but you must also grant the force of the traditions which still persist in social life. Is it not sufficient to account for the effects noted? Could any other effects be expected under the conditions? The only scientific method of reaching a conclusion has yet to be tried, the removal from women of all limitations, social, economical, and political.

HANNAH B. CLARK POWELL

CHICAGO, ILL.

The Country Church and Rural Welfare. Edited by the International Committee of the Young Men's Christian Associations. New York: Association Press, 1912.

This little volume of 150 pages is the result of an attempt on the part of the secretaries of the International Y.M.C.A. to show how the conservation and development of the spiritual side of country life may be secured. The volume contains eight chapters, each one dealing with a particular aspect of the central problem. They discuss the function of the rural church, standards of religious teaching, the church itself, the school, the grange, the institute, and leadership. Each chapter is in reality a symposium by several writers on the subject it

treats. Because of this the work is not systematic and is of a popular nature. It is necessarily unequal in value, being composed of the strong and the weak. For popular purposes it is enlightening and stimulating. JOHN M. GILLETTE

UNIVERSITY OF NORTH DAKOTA

Correlations of Mental Abilities. By BENJAMIN R. SIMPSON. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1912. Pp. iv+122.

This monograph reports the results of an investigation into the interrelationships between certain mental traits, and the correlation between efficiency in certain functions and mental ability as measured by general social efficiency. The practical aim of the work was to find certain tests which might be used to determine the mental ability of applicants for various sorts of positions. The procedure followed was to administer several groups of tests, chosen so as to involve a variety of kinds of mental process, to two groups of adults. One of the groups consisted of seventeen graduate students and professors of Columbia University, and were regarded as possessing a degree of mental ability much above that of the average person. The second group was composed of twenty men who had not proven adequate to the task of providing for themselves, and were the occupants of an industrial home, or who occupied low-grade positions and were regarded by their associates as dull. The tests were designed to measure ability in selective thinking, memory, association, perception, motor control, and spatial discrimination.

The results show, first, that efficiency in these tests is closely related to the form of ability which determines one's station in the world-at least so far as academic attainment is a criterion. It would be well to compare a poor group, such as Simpson used, with a group of men who excelled in other than the academic field. In the second place, some of the tests differentiated much more clearly between the two groups and correlated more closely with the results as a whole than did others. The tests may be graded in value roughly in the order in which they are given above. Mental superiority appears most strikingly in those processes which involve abstract thought, while there is little significance in the simpler perceptual and motor activities.

The author compares his results with those of other investigators in the same field. In the main the results agree. This is the only