136 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
A more serious criticism, however, must be made on the book from a pedagogical point of view. Its arrangement cuts across the best ideas as to the proper method of approach to the subject. Ordinarily it is assumed that a student should first become familiar with the forms of government with which he is in close touch, and enlarge his circle of knowledge from the local to the general. The best pedagogy would presuppose a knowledge of the existing system of government, and its working, for the best results in a further study of the history and growth of the system. To open up with a description of the general theory of the state, and to follow this with a long historical account of the growth of a system whose main features are not yet presented to the pupil, is likely to result in mere memorizing and in a confusion of ideas.
The " Topics of the Day," which are discussed in the last part of the book, are subjects which high-school pupils ought to discuss and to know something about, but they are out of place in a text-book on civics. The political economy is fragmentary and superficial.
The questions and references at the end of each chapter are excel- lent and will prove helpful both to teacher and pupil. There are some typographical errors that catch the reader's eye ; they are so few, how- ever, that they would not be worth mentioning were they not so important in character. As examples we may instance " Nicholay " for Nicolay, p. 157; "Wanbaugh" for Wambaugh, p. 19; " Giffin " for Giffen, p. 484.
In the hands of a thoroughly qualified teacher the book may be used to good advantage, but it will prove embarrassing in its riches to any other.
DAVID KINLEY.
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS.
Democracy and Social Ethics. By JANE ADDAMS. New York : The
Macmillan Co., 1902. Pp. 277.
THE ripest expression of the long experience, brooding thought, creative sympathy, daily contact with all sorts and conditions of men, and varied service comes to us in these chapters on democracy and social ethics. Here is made articulate the unconscious movement of the educated American toward a social standard of moral obligations. "Thus the identification with the common lot which is the essential idea of democracy becomes the source and expression of social ethics."
