CURRENT LITERATURE.
Modern Culture ; its True Aims and Requirements. Edited by Edward L. Youmans, M.D. (Macmillan.)—Dr. Youmans has gathered together in this volume a series of addresses on the claims of scientific education, and the necessity of its being imparted. Professor Tyndall lectures on "The Study of Physics ;" Dr. Daubeny on "The Study of Chemistry ;" Professor Henfrey on " The Study of Botany ;" Professor Huxley on " The Study of Zoology ;" Dr J. Paget on " The Study of Physiology ;" Dr. Whewell on " The Educational History of Science ;" Dr. Faraday on " The Education of the Judgment ;" Mr. Herbert Spencer on "Political Education ; " and Dr. Youmans himself on " The Scientific Study of Human Nature." This is indeed an attractive programme, and almost every paper has some food for thought and discussion. Your scientific men are rather apt to be tyrants, and to look down on any man who cannot pass an examination in the rudiments of their especial branch of study. The story of the German pedant who despised Frederick the Great for his inability to conjugate a verb in gi sometimes occurs to us when we hear of the exclusive claims of science. But we are quite ready to admit that till lately science has not met with a proper reception in England. Teachers have been too much engaged in drumming Greek and Latin into boys, and boys have had too much to do in forgetting their classics, to turn their attention to human& studies. Yet the tido is turning surely, though perhaps slowly, and such a book as the one before us will give an impulse to the current. When boys begin to weigh the attractions of the new sciences against those of the old system, one's only fear is that the old system will run the risk of being altogether abandoned. If it still resists the inroads of its rivals, it is because, in the words of Dean Gaisford's celebrated sermon, it leads to posts of considerable emolument.
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