Part 15

In the last resort, it must be admitted, the fault rests with the people. It is with reluctance that the average elector acknowledges--if he can be brought to acknowledge at all--that any public office requires special qualifications. Such an idea seems to be at war with true democratic doctrine, and to imply a serious abridgment of the powers of the people's representatives. It is readily conceded that private industries and enterprises of all kinds call for training and experience and special knowledge on the part of those who conduct them; but Government business is supposed to be so simple that a wayfaring man, though a pronounced fool, need not err therein. There is more or less hypocrisy, however, in the pretension. The real underlying thought is that, outside of the two great killing departments, no very serious harm can be done by official incompetence, and that the great thing is to provide for "the boys." No idea could be more false. The evil that can be done by unwise economic measures, for example, is incalculable. The army and navy are brought into action only when the dogs of war have been let loose; but the influence of the civil departments of the Government acts unceasingly, and touches the life of the people at a thousand points.

In the matter of public education science has never had the recognition to which it is entitled; nor will it have until the people as a whole know better what science is--until they cease to think of it as a thing of mysteries and technicalities, and come to understand that it is simply the organization of knowledge and the rendering of it available for guidance in the business of life. Meantime, wherever circumstances are favorable, the education of the young, even of the youngest, should be given as far as possible a scientific character. We are strongly inclined to the opinion that, in a country whose fundamental industry is agriculture, an effort should be made in all schools to impart a few sound elementary ideas as to the principles of agriculture. What better starting point could there be for scientific instruction than the soil out of which we derive, mediately or immediately, all that goes to sustain life? It seems to us that no human being should be permitted to be wholly ignorant of the conditions upon which the successful cultivation of the soil depends, and we are persuaded that the subject might, by proper treatment, be made deeply interesting to the vast majority of school children.

A prominent Englishman, Mr. Boyd-Kinnear, has lately been discussing this matter in a London paper. He points out that a knowledge of the scientific principles of agriculture is of fundamental importance, and that whatever else is taught in the national schools, the sciences on which farming rests--physics, chemistry, mechanics, and the physiology of plants and animals--should hold a principal place. He observes that in order to know agriculture it is necessary to understand, first of all, the elements and the action of the soil and the air. There is urgent need, he contends, for teaching what is known on these subjects and for pursuing research into the much larger field of the unknown. In these remarks we entirely concur, and we believe that it would be a happy thing for this country, and for every country, if education could be so administered that, instead of tending, as it so often does, to separate human beings from the soil, it should tend to establish in their minds a sense of their dependence on it and an intelligent, if possible a loving, interest in the operations by which the living of the world is won and the face of Nature is beautified. Here, as we conceive, is where scientific teaching should begin. Such a system of instruction would do much more than increase the intelligence of the farming community, though that would be a benefit of the first magnitude; it would so transform public opinion in general that the divorce we now see between science and the State would no longer be possible. The whole national life would be placed on a sounder basis; and it would probably be found that the result of doing other things scientifically was to diminish very greatly the importance of the arrangements for scientific killing. A nation governed by science would be a peace-loving and peace-maintaining nation.

_AGRICULTURE AND NATIONAL LIFE._

Some very interesting points of view are presented in an article on the food supply of England which appeared a few months ago in The New Century Review of London. The writer, Mr. Richard Higgs, Jr., is very unwilling to admit the commonly accepted view that Great Britain must be dependent upon other countries for the food her people require. He holds that all that is required to make the production of grain profitable in England is the application of higher intelligence and more businesslike methods to the work of the farm. "Speaking generally," he says, "agriculture has been of late a despised industry; intellectual activity has not been brought to bear on it; the men of force and enterprise have failed to recognize that it offers an absolutely unrivaled sphere for the exercise of personal initiative, skill, and knowledge.... Agriculture has not been regarded as a means of assisting human development, but rather as a hindrance to progress. A low type of manhood and a slow, unprogressive condition of life are usually regarded as indispensable to agriculture, and consequently it has been neglected by reformers who desire to further the progress of the race."

The writer proceeds to describe the various ways in which, as he believes, agriculture might be made more profitable, partly through lowering of the cost of production, and partly by improvement of the yield; and, finally, he sets forth the disagreeable and very serious conclusions which flow from the proposition--if it is to be accepted as established--that Great Britain can not feed herself by the remunerative production of wheat in the face of low prices. In the first place, the national policy must be one of "bluff and weakness toward other nations: bluff, because it will not answer our purpose to appear weak; and weakness, because, seeing that possible enemies are our largest feeders, we are not in a condition to deal with other nations on equal terms, but must ever face the galling necessity of being dependent upon the good will of a few powerful nations for our daily bread." A nation so situated must be "in the front rank of the nations which are engaging in the mad scramble after markets"; must give itself over "to all the orthodox requirements of diplomacy by engaging in bullying, cringing, lying, deceit, and massacre, in order to secure an outlet for its manufactured goods." Such a fact further implies "the eternal persistence on the face of the land of those hideous monstrosities--our manufacturing towns; those excrescences which, like the dragon of old, are daily vomiting fire and smoke, and by their foulness are blasting and cursing the lives of the people and causing the physical, mental, and moral deterioration of the race.... It banishes the poetry, the music, and the glories of an agricultural life, and condemns untold millions to the artificial and unhealthy moral atmosphere of our towns."

It may be said that all this has not much application to the state of things in these happy United States. It has application to at least this extent, that our towns too are becoming bloated and our country places starved. We are fully at one with the writer in his estimate of the agricultural life, and believe that no greater service could be rendered to any country than to place its agriculture on the moral and intellectual, as well as on the economic, level which it has a just claim to occupy. It is the application of science to agriculture that will bring about this result.

Scientific Literature.

SPECIAL BOOKS.

_The Theory of the Leisure Class_[58] of Mr. _Thorstein Veblen_ is primarily an inquiry into the place and value of the leisure class as an economic factor in modern life. Hardly less attention, however, is given to the origin and line of derivation of the institution, and to features of social life not commonly classed as economic, into the very heart of some of which the study goes. The institution of the leisure class, which is defined generally as that class whose occupation is not industrial, is found in its best development at the higher stages of the barbarian culture, as in feudal Europe or feudal Japan. Whichever way we go from this point it is modified. Its origin appears at a very early stage in history, and appears in the germ in the savage division of the occupations of men and women. The women carried on the industries, and the men went to the hunt or to war--occupations with which the idea of prowess or exploit was associated, giving the stamp of aristocracy. In the highest development of this distinction, the nonindustrial upper-class occupations may be roughly comprised under the heads of government, warfare, religious observances, and sports. In the sequence of cultural evolution the emergence of a leisure class coincides with the beginning of ownership, ownership of women being one of the most conspicuous forms in earlier times, then ownership of property and its symbols. Among the signs of wealth are conspicuous leisure, which includes social distinction and functions and conspicuous consumption, or the possession of fine things not necessaries, and plenty of them. These lead to the setting up of a pecuniary standard of living and pecuniary canons of taste, and the adoption of dress as an expression of the pecuniary culture. In the chapter on Industrial Exemption and Conservatism we are introduced to the reason of conventionalism and of its power. "The fact that the usages, actions, and views of the well-to-do leisure class acquire the character of a prescriptive canon of conduct for the rest of society gives added weight and reach to the conservative influence of that class. It makes it incumbent upon all respectable people to follow their lead." Hence it exerts a retarding influence on social development, stiffening the resistance of all other classes against innovation. Further, the code of proprieties in vogue at any given time or in any society has the character of an organic whole, and any important infringement upon it is likely to derange it. This conservative quality goes so far as to tend toward spiritual survival and reversion. The idea of prowess survives in our barbaric admiration of military exploits, in the taste for sports, and in the gambling tendency, which is based on belief in luck and is enhanced by the desire to triumph at the expense of another. A connection is traced between the admiration of prowess and the cultivation of the devotional spirit which, joined with the fondness for display, leads all worshipers eventually to elaboration of rituals. A further development, classed as Survivals of the Non-Invidious Interest, is that of beneficences. The Higher Learning was primarily the exclusive privilege of the leisure class, and has still attached to it a mass of ritual in the shape of paraphernalia, ceremonies, degrees, and privileges which grow more elaborate as the college and the community become richer. Devotion to classical learning, which is practically useless, is a form of "conspicuous leisure" and "conspicuous expenditure," but now encounters a rival in athletics, which is equally useless and conspicuous and more costly.

[Footnote 58: The Theory of the Leisure Class. An Economic Study in the Evolution of Institutions. By Thorstein Veblen. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 400. Price, $2.]

The American Economic Association, at its meeting in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1897, authorized the appointment of a committee to inquire into the scope and method of the eleventh census, with a view of determining what ought to be attempted in the twelfth. In order to make an adequate review of the eleventh census this committee invited a certain number of critical articles on particular portions of the work; and further, in order to discover what might seem weak points in the work and what inquiries it might seem desirable to elaborate in the twelfth census, addressed a circular letter of questions to all the members of the association. Only about sixty replies were received to the questions, but a generous response was made to the invitations to contribute reviews, the result of which is a series of papers by independent authors upon specific topics which are regarded as constituting a very valuable commentary on the Federal census and on statistical methods in general. These criticisms are now embodied in a book[59] of more than five hundred pages, containing twenty essays by authors each of whom is specially interested in the particular topic of which he treats. These articles include a general review of the statistics of population, by Walter F. Wilcox, and special articles on the negro population, by W. Z. Ripley; the North American Indians, by Franz Boas; Age, Sex, Dwellings, and Families, and Urban Population, by George K. Holmes; Illiteracy and Educational Statistics, by Davis R. Dewey; Statistics of Occupation, by Richard Mayo-Smith; Various Aspects of the Vital and Social Statistics, by Cressy L. Wilbur, Irving Fisher, Roland P. Falkner, and Samuel M. Lindsay; of Agriculture and Farms, by N. I. Stone and David Kelley; Transportation, by Emery R. Johnson and Walter E. Weyl; Manufactures, by S. N. D. North, William M. Stewart, Worthington C. Ford, and Charles J. Bullock; Wealth, Debt, and Taxation, by Carl C. Plehn; Municipal Finance, by Henry B. Gardner; and the Scope and Method of the Twelfth Census, by William C. Hunt. A number of general conclusions are pointed out by the committee as deducible from the papers contributed by these writers. The criticism throughout touches not so much the accuracy of the census as the treatment of the data and the lack of continuity from census to census--both defects believed to be largely due to the insufficient time allowed by law for preparing plans and schedules. The work of the census is believed to be seriously impeded by the number and variety of the investigations ordered, in consequence of which fundamental inquiries can not receive attention. A number of subordinate inquiries might advantageously be transferred to established bureaus or departments under whose scope they would properly fall, and some of which already publish annual volumes of kindred statistics. Among classes of defects or weaknesses in method pointed out in the criticisms are a lack of comparability in data from census to census, lack of co-ordination, certain specified faults in method, and faults in the textual analysis of the figures. A summary of the answers received to the circular letter of questions is appended, particularly of the answers to the request to suggest what special information might be furnished by the twelfth census which is not in the eleventh. Many of the writers point to the desirability of a permanent census bureau. The committee has a right to congratulate itself, as it does, "upon this noteworthy collection of papers--the result of the scientific zeal and effort of so many men."

[Footnote 59: The Federal Census. Critical Essays by Members of the American Economic Association, collected and edited by a Special Committee. Published for the American Economic Association by the Macmillan Company, New York. Pp. 516. Price, $1; cloth, $2.50.]

GENERAL NOTICES.

The qualification of Mr. _Frederick A. Ober_ to write a book about _Puerto Rico and its Resources_[60] is indicated by the facts that he visited every point of importance on the island in 1880, and revisited it as West Indian Commissioner for the Columbian Exposition. To the fruits of observations made during these two visits he has added information gathered from the books that have been written about Puerto Rico by Spanish and other officers. A plain, concise account of the island is presented, without sensational exaggerations and free from apparent padding. It begins with the consideration and estimation of the commercial and strategic value of the island. Next its coastal features, rivers--of which it seems to have a relatively good supply--and harbors are described. Then the climate, which is "hot and moist, yet in the main less injurious to the health of white people than that of adjacent islands"; seasons, which are not very variable; and hurricanes, which appear to be rather an important feature. As to products, they are of course tropical, and grow, as in Mexico, in three zones of climate and vegetation. Considering these more specially a chapter is given to Sugar, Tobacco, Coffee, and Cacao; another to Fruits, Spices, Cereals, and Food Plants; and a third to Dyes, Drugs, Woods, and Minerals. The chapter on Natural History includes accounts of game and insect pests. The topographic description begins with San Juan, the capital, and takes in the cities and towns of the coast and the inland towns and routes of travel. A few words are devoted to the government as it has been, and the general characteristics of the people are briefly sketched. Accounts of their foods, drinks, diversions, etc., are given, after which the author passes to the Indians of Puerto Rico. Two chapters relate to the general and the recent history of the island respectively. Considerable information of a statistical character is included in an appendix.

[Footnote 60: Puerto Rico and its Resources. By Frederick A. Ober. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 282, with Map.]

President _D. S. Jordan's Footnotes to Evolution_[61] is made up of popular essays or addresses on the general subject of organic evolution which were given originally as oral lectures before University Extension Societies. Three of them have been also published in this Monthly, and as many in another magazine. Besides the author's own twelve essays, he has inserted in this volume three other papers of special importance, setting forth the present state of knowledge concerning the methods of evolution and of heredity. These are on the Factors of Organic Evolution as displayed in the Process of Development, by Prof. E. G. Conklin; the Physical Basis of Heredity, by Prof. F. M. McFarland; on The Testimony from Paleontology, by Prof. J. P. Smith. President Jordan's own essays begin with a discussion of the kinship of life. This is followed by three articles on evolution, relating to its nature, elements, and factors from the point of view of embryology, and an application of the subject in the paper on The Heredity of Richard Roe, in which the rise of race types from the survival of the existing race with its best results modified and preserved by the survival of the fittest is illustrated. In the seventh essay certain facts of animal distribution as related to the origin of species are considered; in the eighth (Latitude and Vertebrata) the curious biological problem of the possession of more numerous vertebræ by northern than by tropical fishes is considered--a problem the solution of which on any other hypothesis than that of the derivation of species would be impossible. The evolution of mind is then taken up as the sum total of all psychic changes, actions, and reactions, and this development is extended to nations the laws of whose greatness "expand themselves from the laws which govern the growth of the single cell." In the essay on Degeneration a lesson is drawn in favor of individual initiative. Hereditary Inefficiency is discussed in view of the danger from pauperism. Some of the aspects of the woman question are considered in another of the essays. In the paper on The Stability of Truth some recent enunciations of Lord Salisbury, Mr. Balfour, and Haeckel respecting science are criticised. The last essay is on The Struggle for Realities, and concerns the relations of science and conservatism, the Church, etc.

[Footnote 61: Footnotes to Evolution. By David Starr Jordan. With Supplementary Essays by Edwin Grant Conklin, Frank Mace McFarland, and James Perrin Smith. New York: D. Appleton and Company. Pp. 392. Price, $1.]

Mr. _Robert P. Porter's_ volume on _Industrial Cuba_[62] deals with living questions of the island. It aims to give a description of Cuba as it appeared to the author when he visited it in the fall of 1898 as special commissioner of the United States to report on its industrial, commercial, and financial condition. It is the result of nearly seven months' inquiry and hard work, in which the island was visited three times, more than five hundred witnesses were examined, and "numerous statements" were studied and analyzed. Among the special subjects treated of are the political and economical condition of Cuba, the outlook for labor, the population, sanitary work, Colonel Waring's report, municipal problems in Havana, banks and currency, the revenue and tariffs, commerce, sugar, tobacco, mines and mining, agriculture and stock, timber and fruit, transportation, navigation, education and religion, and the outlook for the future.

[Footnote 62: Industrial Cuba. Being a Study of Present Commercial and Industrial Conditions, with Suggestions as to the Opportunities presented in the Island for American Capital, Enterprise, and Labor. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 428. Price, $3.50.]

Naturalists and bibliophiles have reason to be grateful to Mr. _Call_ for his verbatim reproduction of Rafinesque's _Ichthyologia Ohioensis_.[63] The book is of importance as constituting, in the language of the editor, the foundation of fresh-water ichthyology in America. No book dealing specifically with the Ohio Valley area as a region has since been published. The original description of many fish forms which are now recognized by ichthyologists as good species were first given in this book, and many have not since been reprinted. Further, the book contains the first and most complete description, to date, of the Ohio River from Pittsburg down, with notices of all its tributaries. Its value as a book about fishes is not limited to the Ohio River, for the species of that stream are found, to a greater or less extent, throughout the Mississippi Valley, so that it is in effect a necessity to all students of the fresh-water fishes of that territory. The editor regrets that Rafinesque did not preserve in some manner the types of his genera, instead of which, when the technical description was completed and some common form, if one was known, was referred to, the specimen was discarded or rejected. Hence his descriptions can not be compared conveniently with prepared specimens in cabinets or with descriptions made from them, but the student must go to the river and look up the living fish. The original papers of Rafinesque on fishes were published in The Western Review and Miscellaneous Magazine, Lexington, Ky., in 1819, 1820, and 1821. The matter was then arranged in book form from the same type. Two different systems of pagination resulted. These have both been indicated in the present edition by the insertion of the numbers at their proper places. The reprint is an exact copy of the original, including even typographical errors, excepting only the style of type. Of the original edition only eight copies are known to exist, so that the republication was desirable to preserve the book, as well as for the facilitation of reference, and of this only two hundred and fifty numbered copies are printed for the market.