tive attainments of the best pupils of the Boston schools of 1845 with the average eighth-grade pupils of today. Fortunately we have extant a laborious survey of the schools of Boston in 1845, with the questions and answers preserved. The authors have carefully adapted these to presentday conditions and given them to about 40,000 pupils scattered all over the United States. Twelve thousand of these, unselected, were tabulated and the results are given. In spite of the fact that the comparison is with the carefully selected best pupils of 1845 and the "unselected lower fourth" of those of 1919, it will be no surprise to thoughtful people that the results are highly favorable to the superior knowledge of the boys and girls of our own day.

It is a very thoughtful and scientifically wrought-out comparison and ought to be widely read. Not only the results but the methods used, and the questions and answers reprinted, ought to be of interest and value. WALTER R. SMITH

UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

Poverty with Relation to Education. By RALPH P. HOLBEN. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1923. Pp. 208.

Sociologists, desiring an example of skilful as well as accurate and painstaking use of the methods of investigation by personal interview and of statistical presentation, will find it in Mr. Holben's study of 100 families in Allentown, Pennsylvania, chosen to represent a fair and unbiased sample of that social stratum known as "poverty stricken."

The results of the study prove conclusively that poverty makes the American boast of equality of educational opportunity a mockery. This is shown by striking data, which fall into two natural groupings: The Parents and the School, and The Children and the School. Under the first it is shown that what has been demonstrated as the rule for the general population (that is, the positive correlation between years of education of the parents and the years of education which they succeeded in giving to their children) is the exception within the poverty-stricken class. The withdrawal of the children from school was in most cases contrary to parental desires and better judgment, but forced by economic necessity.

The general inadequacy of the present school system to meet the needs of the poor is made outstanding by Mr. Holben, who shows that not the present bookish training but a trade is essential to meet the requirement that school be profitable as well as attractive. The continuation school is condemned because of its failure to even approximate fulfillment of its purpose.

The second division shows that the majority of the children left school at the sixth or seventh grade and drifted into industry and "blind alley" jobs. Lack of ambition and a discrepancy between actual work and the hopes of those who could imagine something better characterized the mental state of the children studied in many instances. Mr. Holben makes clear that the social waste involved must be considerably more than society can afford to stand. One and a half per cent of the entire group possessed ambitions and talents which must go unrealized unless aided, and this is no small social loss. Multiply this by the thousands of similar groups throughout the country and the full significance is realized. When Mr. Holben comes to the concluding part of the study and deals with remedies and solutions, he does not allow flights of vision to carry him far from earth. His conclusions and recommendations have a substantial quality. It is suggested that much could be done by reorganization of the schools, thus effecting a better adjustment to the needs of poor children. Vocational training, vocational guides, psychological clinics, and visiting teachers are mentioned as promising steps in the right direction. But of even more fundamental importance is economic amelioration. A few praiseworthy endeavors lead the way toward a solution; mothers' pensions and scholarships help. These should not be regarded as private charity activity, but as state obligations. Society must realize that children of poverty are intellectually disinherited; that it is the social environment and not a difference in innate intellect that makes class differences; that a fundamental obligation of a society, holding the democratic ideal, is a more just distribution of the mental heritage among the children of all classes; and that there is a considerable social waste in the failure of the present system to effect this justice.

NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE BOARD
NEW YORK CITY

NANCY BOYD WILLEY

Federal Centralization. By WALTER THOMPSON. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co. Pp. vii+399. $2.75.

This book is a concise treatment of the constitutional phases of federal control. The author begins his work with a brief discussion of the extent of the central government's power as contemplated by the framers of our constitution. He then takes up one by one the commerce, the taxing, the postal, the treaty-making clauses of the constitution and carefully shows how from these has been developed a very effective federal "police power." The second part of the work dealing with social legislation and

the constitution should be of particular interest to the sociologist. Under social legislation he considers those congressional enactments which have to do with lotteries, vice, food and drugs, child labor, education, and intoxicating liquor. Part three deals with the extension of federal control in the economic field through the interstate-commerce clause, and part four sums up in excellent fashion the possibilities of federal centralization. The whole work is handled conservatively and for the most part scholarly. In the pages on national prohibition, however, Dr. Thompson leaves the cool, reflective atmosphere of his study and sets out with a whoop on a furious war dance in pursuit of the "drys," the Anti-Saloon League, and the allies of both. It is evident throughout the work that the author deprecates the expansion of federal activities; his treatise is, on the whole, a well-reasoned answer to those who call upon the federal government for the amelioration of all the ills which beset the body politic by statue law or constitutional amendment. Above all, it is earnestly recommended for most careful consideration by those of our fellow-citizens who cry out without ceasing, "There ought to be a law against that!"

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

JEROME G. KERWIN

Sound and Symbol in Chinese. By BERNHARD KARLGREN, FIL. DR., Professor of Sinology in the University of Goteborg. London: Oxford University Press, Humphrey Milford, 1923. Pp. 112. $1.00.

This book is an analytical study of the evolution of the Chinese language, which, as the author has skilfuly shown, can be used as a valuable index to get at the possible life, thought, and social origins of the ancient people in China. The so-called "one of the hardest languages in the world" is here for the first time made intelligible to the Englishspeaking public.

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

TSI C. WANG

RECENT LITERATURE

NOTES AND ABSTRACTS

The abstracts and the bibliography in this issue were prepared under the general direction of H. B. Sell, by M. W. Roper, T. C. Wang, D. E. Proctor, W. M. Gray, F. H. Saunders, and Emma P. Goldsmith, of the Department of Sociology of the University of Chicago.

Each abstract is numbered at the end according to the classification printed in the January number.

I. PERSONALITY: THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE PERSON

La phrase dans le langage de l'enfant.-The noun is first used by the child and continues to be used more than other forms, being associated with the action of the object. The complete phrase is acquired very slowly and at the price of laborious effort and even when acquired is not used consistently because of the economy of words and effort. The phrase is not acquired by imitation.-O. Bloch, Journal de psychologie, XXI (January-March, 1924), 18–43. (İ, 3.)

D. E. P.

Un problème premier de la pédagogie morale: la formation du caractère.-Parents are responsible for the building up of the character of the child, which is formed largely in the early training of the child although it may be modified up to the last day. The character of French children has undergone a great change in the last few years primarily as a result of the war. Real success is to be found in just and unselfish effort.Achille Ouy, Revue internationale de sociologie, XXXII (March-April, 1924), 118-26. (I, 3.) D. E. P.

L'interrogation chez l'enfant.-The questions asked by the child show very well the strength of the psychic activity and indicate the progress of his growing intelligence. The conceptions of time and space come relatively late.-H. Wallon, Journal de psychologie, XXI (January-March, 1924), 170-82. (I, 3.) D. E. P.

Quelques considerations à propos de l'intérêt chez l'enfant.-Educators agree that the interest of children must be considered in selecting materials and methods for education. The important point is to understand what are those interests and how they develop at various ages. Several classifications of the stages of interests and experiments to show interest are presented.-O. Decroly, Journal de psychologie, XXI (January-March, 1924), 145-60. (I, 3.) D. E. P.

Les acuités sensorielles et les enfants arriérés ou retardés.-M. Foucault has made some mental, visual, and auditory tests among school children, using among others the Wecker and Masselon, Snellen, and Binet-Simon tests. He is convinced that these tests should be used more extensively by school-teachers in an attempt to reduce the number of children having defective eyesight or hearing, or suffering from fatigue.-M. Foucault, Journal de psychologie, XXI (January-March, 1924), 219-35. (I, 3.) D. E. P.

II. THE FAMILY

New Morals for Old: Can Men and Women be Friends?-Friendship depends upon quality and choice, and there has been very little of either in the relation of the sexes, up to the present. Relations between the sexes have been and are hedged about by conventions. What might be friendship society forces into love-making.-Floyd Dell, Nation, CXVIII (May 28, 1924), 605-6. (II, 1; I, 4.) M. W. R.

The Family Ideal and Religion in Ancient China. Filial duty was the compelling force which controlled the ancient family relationship in China. It was more than a principle; it was a social institution and a code. Its religious activities focused upon

ancestral worship. The fear of the ancestral shades was used as a force to maintain and insure family cohesion. As the individual family worshiped its ancestral line, so the clan its line, and so for the benefit of the entire community the rulers worshiped the Supreme Being.-Herbert Maynard Diamond, China Review, V (October, November, 1923), 104-8; 137-39. (II, 1, 2.) T. C. W.

New Morals for Old: Modern Love and Modern Fiction.-Until each individual of the human species becomes a complete biological entity there can be no fear lest we should cease to live dangerously. We cannot possibly solve the problem of sex love because its most important aspects are not social but human. Modern fiction has brought much enlightenment but no solution.-J. W. Krutch, Nation, CXVIII (June 25, 1924), 735-36. (II, 1, 3.) M. W. R.

New Morals for Old: Toward Monogamy.-The dominance of man has made woman ultra-feminine to a degree often injurious to motherhood, and has made man ultra-masculine. Customs, conventions, ideas of morality, the "double standard," the linking of sex service with marriage, etc., have kept us from a state of natural monogamy. It will take several generations of progressive selection to re-establish a normal sex development.-Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Nation, CXVIII (June 11, 1924), 671-73. (II, 1, 3.) M. W. R.

Ni-hwan Ung Ti.-The Divorce Problem. Divorce is a popular subject of discussion in recent years in China, since her close contacts with the Western world, the breakdown of her old morality, the new thought movement, the movement for the emancipation of women, the rapid growth of industries and urbanization, etc. The doctrine of free divorce, proposed by Ellen Key and Ibsen, alone will not solve the problem. Social control is necessary. Legally, new laws should be made, but fundamental, adequate popular education for children and parents, a democratic family system, industrial democracy, and marriage based on real love should be promoted by society. Kao Er-sung and Kao Er-pei, Chinese Journal of Sociology, I (September, 1923), 80-95. (II, 3.) T. C. W.

The Job and the Middle-Aged Woman.—There is today a group of women between the ages of forty and sixty-five who, after years of effective service as home-makers, are finding themselves with nothing to do. These women do not want an avocation, a fad, a filler of time. They want a real job, but what the job shall be is an unsolved problem.-Alice Wholey, New Republic, XXXIX (May 28, 1924), 14-16. (II, 3.) M. W. R.

III. PEOPLES AND CULTURAL GROUPS

Immigration and the American Birth-Rate.-The idea that the birth-rate of the native American stock responds directly to the inrush of immigrants may be dismissed as an illusion. The causes lie more on the rapid industrial and social changes. The growth of individualism and the decline of the Puritanic tradition was accompanied by the wide dissemination of information concerning mechanical means of birth control.-E. B. Reuter, Journal of Applied Sociology, VIII (May-June, 1924), 274-82. (III, 4.) T. C. W.

The Immigration Peril.-The preservation of American tradition, language, ideals, and law are threatened by the influx of aliens, largely Roman Catholic or Jewish, from Southern Europe. Like-mindedness, psychologically essential to unity, is dependent upon similar racial heredity. The dominance of Anglo-Saxon Protestantism is urged through the public school with rigid exclusion of aliens of other stocks.-Gino Speranza, World's Work, XLVII (November, December, 1923), 57-65, 147-60; (January, February, March, April, 1924), 256-74, 399-409, 479-94, 643-48; XLVIII (May, 1924), 62-68. (III, 4.) W. M. G.

Women in India: Some Problems. Many problems arise between the orthodox Hindu woman and the English educated woman. The social customs in India conflict on every hand with ideas gained in education. In India one must accept the religion of one's family or group or be an outcast. The solution lies in the education of the orthodox woman.-Cornelia Sorabji, Fortnightly Review, CXV (May, 1924), 661-73. (III, 5, 1; IV, 2.) M. W. R.