very valuable Bibliography of Psychological Tests (price 25 cents). It has been compiled by Helen Boardman, Research Worker for the Bureau of Educational Experiments. The bibliography is divided into three sections: Literature pertaining to the Binet-Simon Scale; Mental Tests other than those on the Binet-Simon Scale; and a Classified Bibliography for Vocational Psychology. The lists are alphabetically arranged and will be found invaluable for reference. We shall anticipate the coming of further material from this promising Bureau of Educational Experiments, and it is to be hoped that a consideration of the aims and work of the American centre will incite some wealthy educationist to establish a similar centre for British workers.

NOTA BENE.

The Sixth Annual Conference of Educational Associations is to be held in University College, Gower Street, W.C.1, from Wednesday, January 2, to Saturday, January 12, 1918. A complete programme may be obtained on application to the Conference Secretary, Mr. Frank Fairman, M.A., 9, Brunswick Square, W.C.1. A Report of the Conference is to be issued in volume form (price 25., postage 4d., if ordered before January 12, after which date the price will be 2s. 6d. with postage extra). Some thirty-four societies will be represented, including the Associations of Head Mistresses, Science Teachers, Teachers of Domestic Subjects and University Women Teachers, the Child Study Association, the Civic and Moral Education League, the Dalcroze Society, the Educational Handwork Association, the Froebel Society and Junior Schools Association, the Montessori Society, the National Home-Reading Union, the Parents' National Educational Union, the School Nature Study Union, the Schools Personal Service Association, the Simplified Spelling Society, the Society of Education, and the Teachers' Guild. The Conference will be opened with an address by Sir John D. McClure, LL.D., M.A. Many important papers will be presented and valuable discussions will take place. Non-Members can obtain

tickets for the whole Conference, 5s. each. Members of any of the associations participating can attend any of the open meetings. An Educational Exhibition is to be held in connection with the Conference.

The Carnegie Trust has offered to meet the cost of erecting and equipping at Shoreditch one of the four model welfare centres which the Trust intends to establish in England and Wales for promoting the physical welfare of mothers and children. One condition is that the scheme shall be made part of a comprehensive system of physical welfare under the control of the borough council, and be approved by the Local Government Board for the purpose of Imperial grants.

Musical works to be submitted to the Carnegie United Kingdom Trust, under its 1918 scheme for the publication of musical compositions, must be received by the Secretary of the Trust, East Port, Dunfermline, not later than February 1, 1918. The composers must be of British parentage and nationality, ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom; and the works submitted must be original and unpublished. Particulars as to the character of the compositions and the awards may be obtained from the Secretary.

The National League for Physical Education and Improvement (Incorporated), 4, Tavistock Square, W.C., is accomplishing notable service by the issue of educational illustrated "Wall Charts." No. 7, just published, graphically portrays the "Danger of Overlaying ”—the grammarian will regret the use of the word "overlaying" when "overlying" is the correct expression-and also furnishes figures of "some useful makeshift cots." The price of the chart is 25. net. The chart should be exhibited in all schools for mothers and other centres where those responsible for the care of infants are likely to be found. The League has also just issued a "Roll of Honour of the No Dummy League," artistically illustrated, and with spaces for signatures. It is intended for use in centres affiliated to the Association of Infant Welfare and Maternity Centre. The price is 6d. The same Association is issuing a series of informing "Leaflets" for distribution. The latest, No. 23, deals with "The Weaning of Infants."”

This book is a masterpiece. Mr. Pugh has written many able novels and belles lettres, but in this, his latest volume, he has produced something which is half fiction and half autobiography. The author not only possesses the power of vivid delineation of personalities, but he has retained a keen remembrance and understanding of a boy's outlook on the problems of life. Most grown-ups, however much attention they devote to child study and whatever the industry they bring to the investigation of the psychology of childhood, fail to preserve the child spirit in themselves. Mr. Pugh has been greatly blessed, for he has retained his impressions of boyhood and adolescence. In his wonderful story he traces the spiritual, intellectual and emotional development of an exceptional child. Every page evidences a wonderful insight into the working of the child mind and a wide sympathy with the mysterious groping of the child spirit for meaning, expression and contact with life's great verities. Every parent, teacher and lover of children should read this remarkable exposition of the soul of the child. We could easily fill columns with suggestive extracts from these pages. We must be permitted to present three or four quotations. The boy hates to be counted an exceptional or made to look conspicuous. Here is how Mr. Pugh puts it: "The worst thing that can happen to any boy at any school is to be associated in any way with anything unusual. To wear unusual clothes, to be unusually tall or short, fat or thin, to have an unusual allowance of eyes, to have an unusually large head, or unusually small feet, an unusual accent or unusual hair, to be unusual in any way-except in the way of stupidity-is to be guilty of the one unforgivable sin of boyhood." Mr. Pugh holds up a magic mirror to grown-ups and seeks to reproduce their likeness in

the developmental period of their existence. "I want to re-introduce you to yourself that old childish self you have somehow mislaid or outgrown, but which still lives in all the children, your own or others', with whom you may come in contact. I think that there is far too little understanding of children, that we are all too much inclined to take them for granted, and to take for granted that we do understand them. . . . Children are different from both men and women, they are more subtle, more self-contained, more elusive, more baffling in every way than any adult of either sex. We may perhaps learn more from them than they can ever learn from us. I do really believe that. I do most sincerely believe that the best wisdom cometh, not of toil and experience, thought and study, pain and striving, but out of the mouths of babes and sucklings." And Mr. Pugh has a noble ideal for childhood: "Childhood should be and would be the happiest time of our lives if only children were allowed to be children. But they are not. Childhood, indeed, might ever be a time of the most radiant joy and gladness if only children were more often permitted to do the things they want to do, and it were not so commonly taken for granted that anything they seem to like must of necessity be bad for them." And here is a picture of the parent of the Victorian age and some to-day: "A popular sentiment among the parents of my day was that a child should be kept in its place; its place being usually the most uncomfortable seat or the most obscure or chilly corner of the room. Another sentiment equally popular was to the effect that children should be seen and not heard, which implied that they might be constant witnesses of all the varied phenomena of daily existence but might not ask for any information concerning them. Then they were told to sit still and not fidget. And all the while they remained under their parents' surveillance they were perpetually subject to a running fusillade of commands and prohibitions.

They were never treated as fellow human beings of perhaps less intelligence and certainly less experience. They were addressed as the drill-sergeant addresses his company of raw recruits as if they were mindless pawns in an elaborate game which it was neither fit not feasible that they should ever understand. But the crowning iniquity of all was that they were always at the mercy of the everchanging caprices and moods of their elders." Mr. Pugh's wonderful powers of vision utterly and inexplicably fail him when he attempts an estimate of the Boy Scout Movement. His criticism not only is clearly the outcome of a lack of understanding, but it is directed by the worst forms of adult, non-progressive, Victorian prejudices. We hope that Mr. Pugh will repent and recant, and for his ignorances and blindness of heart he should bring forth fruit meet for repentance and serve till the end of the War as a patrol leader. The two concluding chapters of this revealing book are entitled: "First Love" and "The Fear of God," and we mention them to show that the shaping and governing forces in a child's evolution are bravely faced. There is no space for quotations, although we are tempted to risk all editorial condemnation. But this is not a book to be reviewed, it is the revelation of a child's soul, for which we should reverently offer sincere thanksgiving.

"W. E. Ford: A Biography." By J. D. Beresford and Kenneth Richmond. Pp. vii +310. London: W. Collins, Sons and Co., 48, Pall Mall, W. 1917. Price 6s. net.

In spite of the artistic photogravure frontispiece of "William Elphinstone Ford from a pencil sketch at the age of 15, by an unknown artist," many readers of this remarkable "life will ask, Was there ever a W. E. Ford? There is much to suggest that the "biographers" have adopted an ingenious and attractive biographical form for the presentation of their own thoughts and conclusions regarding the aims and accomplishments of education and educational methods. Ford was an idealist, an eccentric, an enthusiast, an unscientific experimenter, an impractical dreamer, and yet with vision and faculties capable of accom

The

plishing much constructive work. presentation of this attractive yet ineffective personality is peculiarly suggestive, and the "life" is skilfully revealed with real literary grace and power. The book is described on the cover as "The story of a man who lived before his time," but some will contend that this summary is scarcely adequate. Ford possessed no true philosophy of life, was without any sure and scientific foundation of educational principles, and lacked practical experience. His driving force seems to have had its origin in his conception of "the urgency behind life." His great desire was for "liberation." In practice his accomplishment was of no permanent avail. He conducted a day school on a coeducational basis, but the parents of the children realizing the impracticability of much in connection with Ford's scheme under existing conditions of social life and educational enterprise withdrew their support, and the school was closed without a complete experiment having been carried through. Ford's educational ideas are full of interest, and especially in the light of existing experiments and experiences merit consideration. He believed in the educational influence of interaction between the minds, the wills, and the character of parents and children, and conde.nned the artificiality of the boarding school community. "Children home for the holidays are usually visitors, not vital intimates, in a home that is itself quickly becoming atrophied, because in losing its young life it has lost its raison d'étre." Ford disliked harness and blinkers for children. He sought to give his scholars the opportunity and means for self-guidance. “To his mind, rigid rules of work and of behaviour were as useless, and as ugly, as rigid desks." He objected to wall maps, he condemned prizes, he disliked rewards and punishments, he discounted the value of memorizing, he strove to inculcate the importance of the understanding and relationship of facts. Above all, Ford was convinced that no teaching could be effectual for the future which did not enable a child to exert and to express his own will at every turn. Mr. Richmond contends that Ford was "the only practitioner in education who clearly worked out the further need of developing a child's will not only that he

may learn the better, but in order that what he learns may have effect in his after life." In carrying out his views he sought to elaborate what he termed "the technique of praise.” Our guiding principle, he urged, should be that a thing well done and spontaneously was of far greater educational value than a thing well done under constraint. "Constraint was necessary in so far as one had not yet secured the spontaneity; but it was a second-best-a confession of weakness. And constraint ultimately rested upon punishments. A punishment was, as it were, a push from behind. Quite an elaborate technique of punishment had been worked out by the teaching profession-all of it unsatisfactory, because punishment is in itself an unsatisfactory method. But if we disliked, as all teachers dislike, this clumsy and unsatisfactory push from behind, why had we not developed a method of pulling from the front?" There is much that is peculiarly fascinating about the ideals attractively set forth in this book, but through all there is all too evident the want of a binding purpose, a co-ordinating principle, and so, in spite of much that is suggestive and serviceable, Ford's contentions lack grip and, as in the case of his own life work, will probably exercise no permanent influence on educational principles and practice. But the book is one which no educationist can afford to neglect, and Mr. Beresford, and especially Mr. Richmond, who is answerable for the major portion of the book, have produced a "life" which must rank as a valuable contribution to the evolution of educational philosophy and the exposition of pedagogical methods.

SO

"Standard Method of Testing Juvenile Mentality by the Binet-Simon Scale with the original Questions, Pictures and Drawings: A Uniform Procedure and Analysis." By Norbert J. Melville, Director of Psychological Laboratory, Philadelphia School of Pedagogy, with an introduction by William Healy, M.D., Director of Juvenile Psychopathic Institute, Chicago. Pp. xi +142. Philadelphia and London: J. B. Lippincott Company. 1917. Price 8s. 6d.

net.

The methods of testing the intelligence of mentally defective, backward and delinquent children, introduced by Binet

and Simon, and modified, elaborated or simplified by their followers, have been extensively used and in many cases have proved of considerable service. Dr. Healy, in his introduction to Dr. Melville's work, is careful to point out that the application of the Binet system is to be regarded in surveying individual capabilities or in estimating group capacities only in the light of first-aid work: "For final diagnosis of the mentality of the individual, the Binet test score is simply one out of several main facts to be taken into consideration." The present book was prepared to furnish the ever-increasing number of examiners who seek to render first aid in juvenile mentality crises with an informing, reliable, concise, practical handbook and guide to the scientific examination of mentally exceptional children. Many teachers as well as school medical officers are taking an interest in the testing of mentality, and these will find Dr. Melville's manual of great service. The author has had extensive experience in mentality testing in a number of public schools in New York, Princeton and Philadelphia, and this has involved the training and supervision of several hundred co-workers and the evaluation of the results of some thousand Binet tests. These investigations have demonstrated the practicability of standardizing each detail of procedure in testing juvenile mentality, and these details it is the object of this work to set forth. The first part discusses the general procedure which should be adopted in gathering and analysing the data. The author's summary is so practical and likely to be serviceable to many that we make no apology for reproducing it here: "(1) Do not attempt to apply a mentality scale until you have had specific training in its technique. (2) Do not begin to test a subject unless you have succeeded in getting him to appear at ease. Find some pleasant way of terminating a sitting if the subject appears not to be doing his best. Use every resource to secure his interest except severe reprimand or threat. (3) Do not let the subject wait between the tests or watch you recording. Keep him occupied all the time so that the examination does not become tedious. Do this even at the expense of more complete verbatim records.

(4) Do not dismiss the subject even at the end of the time limit until you have looked over his record to be sure that it is complete for that sitting. As soon as he is dismissed, fill in such incomplete verbatim records as you can from memory and the record of (i) general attitude, and (ii) remarks. (5) Do not permit yourself to give the subject any clue as to the correct response or as to whether or not his response is satisfactory. Assume a kindly and encouraging manner throughout, thereby being perfectly non-committal. (6) Do not attempt to adapt or supplement the test instructions in any way. Remember that you are testing the ability to react to standardized formulæ. Foreign subjects should be tested with a standard translation. Remember, how. ever, to adapt your manner to the needs of each subject, so that he will be at ease. (7) Do not allow yourself to be prejudiced by any information as to the age, position, or character of the subject. Consider him an x to be solved by means of the tests first, and then later by all available supplementary data. (8) Do not compute the Binet age, sub-age, &c., until you have compared each response on the examination notes with the examples of correct and incorrect responses contained in the method. (9) Do not conclude that the Binet age is an exact expression of the mental level of the subject. Remember that the Binet age, sub-age and super-age are conventions adopted for practical purposes and must be interpreted in the light of the whole test record, of biological data, &c. None but specialists in juvenile mental and physical disorders should attempt to make a diagnosis of mental retardation. (10) Do not confuse the aims and technique of mentality testing with those of clinical or laboratory psychology. Standardized mentality testing is an invaluable preliminary to the more intensive study of certain cases. With immature subjects, i.e., juvenile minds, the brief experimental probing used in applying mentality scales is often the only procedure that yields results of any value. Remember that the fundamental principle here is a standardization (i) of test conditions, and (ii) of judgments in scoring the responses." This résumé admirably indicates the spirit, aim and methods of this

thoroughly practical and helpful manual. Part II consists of the various tests conveniently arranged and forming a uniform method of applying the Binet-Simon scale, together with notes indicating modifications found in various adaptations. The handbook will meet a real need, and we commend it to the serious study of all school medical officers, teachers and others interested in the scientific study of mentally exceptional children.

66

'Shell Shock and its Lessons." By G. Elliot Smith, M.A., M.D., F.R.C.P., F.R.S., Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Professor of Anatomy in the Victoria University of Manchester, and T. H. Pear, B.Sc., Lecturer in Experimental Psychology. Pp. xi + 135. Manchester: The University Press. 12. Lime Grove, Oxford Road. 1917. Price 2s. 6d. net.

The title of this intensely interesting manual does not adequately express the full character of its contents. War is compelling us to revise our theories, readjust our practices, and extend our diagnostic and therapeutic methods in regard to many medico-sociological matters, and this is particularly the case in regard to mental derangements and moral disorders. The present monograph is a timely exposition of many points in morbid phychology which urgently call for immediate inquiry. The investigation of so-called shell-shock cases is furnishing material which should have lasting influence on our conception of mental disease and the ways in which it may be prevented and arrested. The book to begin with furnishes a particularly able and non-technical account of that complex to which the official designation of "shell-shock" has been applied, but it does much more. It seeks to arouse public and professional opinion to the serious limitations and errors of the British attitude towards mental disorder : "The shifting and unstable blend of apathy, superstition, helpless ignorance and fear with which our own country has too long regarded these problems is rapidly becoming our exclusive distinction." The authors offer abundant facts and incontrovertible arguments in support of their contentions. Their aims are well expressed in the concluding sentences of the introduction: "Not patriotic