Science made. Easy. By Thomas Twining. (Chapman and HalL)— The
author has been for many years a leading spirit amongst those who have endeavoured to popularise science among the working classes, and knows well the difficulties that untutored intellects find in grasping the general inductions from scientific facts. To obviate these, ho has devised a plan of simple lectures, which will put before uncultivated audiences the chief laws of science, especially those applied to the requirements of daily life, and impresses them upon the mind by means of simple experiments. Laudable as his intention is, we cannot help thinking that his binary method, in which one reads the lecture and another demonstrates it, is not one adapted ad captandum vulgus. He suggests that the village clergyman should be the reader, and the doctor or druggist the demon- strator. We are afraid, in this case, the lecture would read too much like a sermon, and be devoid of the interest which an extempore speaker alone could arouse, for enthusiasm is contagious even in science-lecturing. They might, however, be used as notes by any one endowed with an ordinary scientific education ; and if they arouse any interest in the minds of the artisan class, good must result. Why should Mr. Twining sneer at Greek for giving us our terminology ? Can he suggest anything better.
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