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not be inapt. "The last means to avoid popery is, to amend our lives; it is a general complaint, that this nation, of late years is grown more numerously and excessive vicious than heretofore; pride, luxury, drunkenness, whoredom, cursing, swearing, bold and open atheism everywhere abounding; where these grow, no wonder if popery also grows apace."

If the alien are morally deficient as a body, the Bible is better than the statute-book for their elevation. If a portion of them have an impure faith, legislative proscription and persecution will not improve it. Make the Bible to them a free but not a forced book, accessible, but not unavoidable. Press its truths, not so much to refute heresy, as to succor fallen humanity. Shun their creed and touch their conscience. Beget about them a pure moral atmosphere, so they and their children will grow up strong in the virtues that constitute a good citizen. Be true men ourselves, and welcome them as manhood has a right to be received, and the country is safe from any danger which they may beget. If we will stand on the defensive, let the Teacher and the Preacher be our guard, and the Spelling Book and the Bible our weapons.

ART. VIII.-PHYSIOLOGY IN SCHOOLS.

Human Physiology, designed for Colleges and the Higher Classes in Schools, and for general reading. By WORTHINGTON HOOKER, M. D., Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine in Yale College; Author of "Physician and Patient." Illustrated by nearly 200 Engravings. New York: Farmer, Brace, & Co.

Ir is a cheering sign of the times that men distinguished as scholars and savants are beginning to acknowledge the claims of the common school upon their learning and their pens. The discovery has been made and extensively announced, that it actually requires more thorough scholarship, a higher tact, and a heavier weight of intellectual metal, to lay the battlements of science level to the step of a child, than to open them to the entrance of the matured and disciplined student. The most distinguished teachers are coming to regard the primary

school as the post of honor in their profession. Professors in college may be superficial, and a mysterious reserve may hide their defects; they may be dull, and their dullness be regarded an attendant upon profundity; they may be common-place, and be supposed to exhibit only the simplicity of true wisdom. But he who undertakes to communicate with the mind of a child must understand what he is saying, or unmistakable indications of youthful ennui, will apprise him that his ignorance is fit, if it is not perceived. He must be animated also; the fervor of feeling, the force of strong conception, the glow of rapid and precise mental action, must lend warmth to his language and life to his manner, or the urchins before him will find a more congenial occupation in illustrating the nursery dogma,

For Satan finds some mischief still,
For idle hands to do.

Now this combination of vigor with clearness, of accuracy with enthusiasm, of logic with poetry, is a gift bestowed only upon men of the highest order of mind. Such may find their appropriate sphere of action, where their genius will have full scope in adapting the truths of science to the taste and capacity

of children.

The work of Dr. Hooker, on Human Physiology, appears to us a remarkably successful effort of this kind. It is true, the title page declares that it is designed for "Colleges and Higher Schools;" but the author has command of that felicitous style which is pleasing alike to the old and the young. The clearness of his language, and the precision of his thoughts, remind the reader of Paley, to whose work on Natural Theology this treatise bears a striking resemblance. A good specimen of the charming simplicity of the style may be found in the explanation given of the difference between organized and unorganized substances, at the opening of the first chapter:

"The crystal and the plant are both wonderful growths. As you look at them, you think of the crystal as having been formed, and of the plant as having grown. But in one sense they have both grown to be what they are. The crystal was once a minute nucleus, and the plant was once a little germ. "In one respect they are alike in their growth-both have increased from particles taken from things around them. But the processes by which this is done are different in the two cases. The crystal has increased or grown by layer after layer of particles. There are no spaces or passages by which particles of matter can be introduced inside of it. Any part of it, when once formed, is not altered. It can receive additions

upon the outside alone. But it is not so with the plant. This enlarges by particles which are introduced into passages and interstices. It grows, as it is expressed, by absorption or by intussusception.

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How, now, is this absorption effected? It is done by certain vessels or organs, constructed in the root of the plant for this purpose. These take up or absorb fluid matter from the earth. There are other organs which circulate this fluid through all the plant; and others still which use it for the purpose of growth or formation. There are no such organs in the crystal, for it has no inner growth. The plant is therefore said to be an organized substance or being, and the crystal is an unorganized substance. And so we speak of the organic structure, or the organization of plants."

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This simplicity of language and precision of statement will be found to characterize the entire volume. The author has given an additional freshness to his style by adopting the familiar mode of address which belongs to the lecture room. He keeps up a perpetual conversation with his readers. The free use of the pronouns "I" and "you" constantly remind the student of the author's existence as a living speaking personality, to whose words he is bound to give at least a polite attention. The ease and fullness of expression which pervade the treatise are worthy of all praise. But if these could have been combined in some instances with more concentration and force both in the language and thought, we think the volume would have been more attractive to the mass of readers. One sometimes feels that the author has had quite too easy a time in composing his sentences. There is nothing like carelessness visible, yet the thought would often have been made more vivid and impressive by a compression within narrower boundaries of expression. We should add as another peculiar excellence of the style of this work, technical terms are almost entirely omitted. The object of such a treatise should be to give a statement of the great facts in Physiology, not a list of hard names from the terminology of Anatomy, which the student will master by dint of exemplary labor to-day, only to forget them to-morrow. In this respect Dr. Hooker's book differs from most other works of its class. The respectable physicians who have prepared school books on Physiology, seem to have fancied themselves addressing a class of medical students. Indeed, one can hardly help suspecting that whole pages of these treatises were taken from notes penciled down in the lecture room of the Medical College. Opening at random the work of Cutler, for example, which is very extensively

used in our schools, we find on a single page no less than twenty-seven purely technical terms, beside many other words, which no young pupil would be able to comprehend. In looking through an entire chapter in Dr. Hooker's book on the same subject, occupying twenty closely printed pages, each containing nearly double the matter of one in Cutler, we have been able to find but three anatomical terms, and these are introduced for the purpose of receiving a full and lucid explanation. We believe that every experienced teacher will agree with us in the opinion that this characteristic of Dr. Hooker's book is one of vital consequence. We are confident that the use of text-books, which are so overloaded with names, will have no other result than to create a disgust for the whole subject of which they treat.

We notice also with pleasure that Dr. Hooker confines himself strictly to the science of Physiology. Some other works, as that of Jarvis, are occupied quite as much with Hygiene as with Physiology. It is better to have but one at a time. We hope that Dr. H. will prepare a separate treatise on the art of preserving the health, based upon the principles elucidated in his present work.

But the feature of Dr. Hooker's work, which will especially commend it to the intelligent educator, is its originality. By this we mean that the science has been fully mastered by the author, and its facts reproduced in such a manner as to bear the stamp of his own individuality. The thoughts are made his own before they are given to the reader. His volume is not a mere conduit, conveying to us the tricklings from some larger reservoir. His own mind is full of the theme, and his work, though necessarily brief, resembles the free gushing fountain, which has a reserved force behind it. We are sure that the author did not exhaust his resources in preparing this book. We are quite sure that he is not the retailer of other men's resources. On the contrary, most of the class books which we have been able to examine on the subject of physiology seem to be mere compilations of larger works. In some instances, the authors do not seem to have taken the trouble to give even a logical arrangement to the materials which they have plundered. The boldness with which this plagiarism has been practised in some instances is astonishing. We have before us a quarto volume of 110 pages, entitled "Principles of Physiology." the eighty-eight pages devoted especially to Physiology, some thirty-eight are taken bodily from Carpenter's Animal Physiology, large portions being copied verbatim et literatim. Estimating all the stray paragraphs and sentences copied in like

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manner, it would be fair to set down one half the work as being a copy of Carpenter's. It should be called an abridgment or compilation from Carpenter. Yet the only acknowledgment we have discovered of all this indebtedness is a remark in the preface, to the effect that the reader will observe "that many of the engravings, and also parts of several chapters have been copied from the admirable Animal Physiology of Dr. Carpenter." When the author comes to prepare his "Class Book" for the use of schools, he gives us still another abridgment, based upon his former work, without any reference to Carpenter, save the mention of his name in the preface, in connection with those of a dozen other authorities. To say nothing of the morality of such a proceeding, it is evident that a mere compilation can never answer a good purpose, when used in the instruction of children. They, even more than adults, need the freshness, the clearness, and the point which an original writer alone can give to the elucidation of the subject.

We have dwelt on these particulars because they are of great importance in the selection of a school book. Our object has been to touch upon those points of which teachers and school committees will be especially desirous of obtaining information.

The work is arranged in a very natural and logical manner. It comprises three parts. The first is occupied with preliminary topics, such as the distinction between organized and unorgan ized substances, between animals and plants, closing with an admirable discussion of the "relations of man to the three kingdoms of nature," pointing out the fallacy of those analogies by which some sceptical naturalists have endeavored to make man first-cousin to the baboon and the ourang-outang. The second part treats of the human frame, "simply as a structure, showing how it is constructed and kept in repair." The particular topics are-General Views of Physiology, Digestion, Circulation, Respiration, Formation and Repair, and Cell Life. The discussion of the subject of "Cell Life" is one of the most intensely interesting character. The following paragraphs are taken from the beginning of the chapter on that subject:

"In previous chapters, in treating of the construction of the body, I have spoken of the formative vessels in accordance with the common language of physiologists. The common idea had been hitherto, that the work of construction is performed by vessels appended to the capillaries. The capillaries were considered as the repositories of the blood, they receiving it from the arteries, and holding it in readiness for the use to which it is to be put by the formative vessels. These formative vessels, it was supposed, exercised in some way a power of

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