and concludes that the great mistake has been in asking too much and giving too little. He will hardly be disputed when he asserts that there can be no substitute for a knowledge of pertinent biological facts where theories on child culture go astray. One regrets that the author does not always discriminate between the unwholesome possibilities of a method, and the method as actually used with discretion. One hesitates to follow him the whole length of his unstinted condemnation of present methods of kindergarten teaching, institutional training, and religious instruction, although one feels that the criticism is in the right direction; this, in spite of the fact that the advent of more intelligent teachers and guardians tempts one to soften a hasty judgment on present methods.
The fact remains that the subject is approached from the right direction. There is a sympathetic understanding of the needs and capacities of childhood without the dangerous claim of sentiment which too frequently obscures judgment. One must commend most of all the sane determination to make theory and tradition wait upon biological knowledge. In face of the mass of literature on the subject, it is much, but not too much to say that the book fills a real need.
I. M. Bentley.
psychologie de la clinique à la Salpêtrière, première série. Paris, F.
Alcan, 1898.—pp. iv, 492.This volume contains thirteen essays and reports of cases from the pen of the distinguished author of L'automatisme psychologique. All of them have already appeared in periodicals; but some were practically inaccessible to the American reader, and many have now undergone revision and correction. Psychologists and medical men alike will be grateful to Dr. Janet for the matter and form of his communications. The titles of the papers are as follows: a case of aboulia and imperative ideas; the measurement of attention, and the graphic method in reaction work; continued amnesia; the history of an imperative idea; imperative ideas of hysterical form; a case of allochiria; a case of hysterical hemianopsia; contractures, paralyses, and spasms of the muscles of the trunk in hysterical patients; insomnia due to a subconscious imperative idea; a case of possession and exorcism in modern times; divination by mirrors and subconscious hallucinations; somnambulistic influence and the need of direction; a surgical operation during artificial somnambulism. The doctrines of mental dissociation and mental synthesis are prominent throughout.
A second volume of similar studies, written in collaboration with Professor Raymond, is promised shortly. It would thus appear that these Travaux from the Salpêtrière laboratory are to be the pathological counterpart of the Année published by the professors of the Sorbonne.
E. B. T.
