superior merit the hope of escape from a low caste in the succeeding rebirth, he observes: "How much better it would have been for the whites in the United States had they taught the negroes the doctrines of transmigration of soul and Karma instead of Christianity!" The book will make the reader realize that present conditions in the United States are startlingly similar to those which in India gave rise to a system of castes.

It is to be hoped Mr. Ketkar will complete his series of studies in caste. Such a contribution to sociology justifies the policy of the progressive Maharajah of Baroda in sending promising Hindus to acquaint themselves with the learning of the West.

EDWARD ALSWORTH Ross

UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN

Modern Educators and Their Ideals. By TADASU MISAWA. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1909. Pp. 304. $1.25.

This work is a summary of the ideas of modern writers about education, of the same general type as Munroe's The Educational Ideal and Laurie's Educational Opinion from the Renaissance. It differs from most of these summaries of modern opinion in making Comenius the primary point of departure, thus omitting the group of Renaissance theorists, Rabelais, Montaigne, Ascham, etc. There are chapters on Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Froebel, Herbart, and Spencer.

Considerable space is devoted to a discussion of the educational theories of modern philosophers with chapters on Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. Twenty-one pages are devoted to Fichte and only twenty-four to Pestalozzi. Kant receives fifteen pages and Basedow only five, yet the author quotes Paul Monroe to the effect that "Basedow succeeded in effecting a complete change in the whole nature of education and instruction in Germany."

A unique feature is the inclusion of chapters on W. T. Harris and G. Stanley Hall. In the preface the author makes special acknowledgment of indebtedness to President Hall.

The book is intended for "students of pedagogy in colleges or normal schools, teachers and other practical workers in educational fields, and those parents who take a special interest in the problems of education."

The following criticisms are suggested: (1) Most American

normal school and college students would fail to understand many parts of the book because it practically assumes that the reader has a knowledge of modern philosophy, e. g., "As Kant endeavored to clear away all the one-sided dogmatic views of preceding metaphysics by the standard of his analytic epistemology and to establish in their place a new system of philosophy upon the unshakable basis of the a priori categories of knowledge, so Herbart tried the same in the field of pedagogy" (p. 200). (2) Even if students should understand what is said, they would not learn much history of education. Pestalozzi would be for them primarily a theorist, and of Pestalozzian industrialism as worked out by Fellenberg and Pestalozzian object teaching, and of Pestalozzian methods of teaching the formal subjects by reducing them to their elements, they would learn practically nothing. (3) In presenting contemporary American educational theory, Dewey's social conception surely deserves as much prominence as the theories of W. T. Harris and G. Stanley Hall, but it is not mentioned. (4) The author gives evidence of a wide knowledge of educational literature, including such German works as those of Heinrich Sherer in which the social background and practical influence of educational theory are emphasized. It is unfortunate that the author has not included more of this element and less of the philosophical.

S. C. PARKER

Les vierges mères et les naissances miraculeuses. By P. SAINTYVES. Paris: Emile Nourry, 1908. 16mo., pp. 280.

Saintyves' book is a volume in the Bibliothèque de critique religieuse. It is called an essay in comparative mythology. It aims to bring the birth of Christ into relation and place with the vast number of miraculous births recorded in sacred books or recounted in the folklores and mythologies of many peoples. The field is not unworked. E. Sidney Hautant in his Legend of Persons presents many miraculous births; so does De Charencey in his Le fils de la vierge (published in second edition under the title Lucina sine concubitu). Saintyves has added to the work of his predecessors chiefly a method of treatment. He classifies and groups his great number of cases under the means by which conception has been produced. Thus his chapters are: "Fecundating Stones and

Stone-Worship;" "Aquatic Theogamies and Water-Worship;" "Fecundating Practices of Plant-Worship;" "Phytomorphic Theogamies;" "Of Miraculous Births Due to Simultaneous Action of Divine Plants and Sacred Waters;" "Theromorphic Theogamies;" "Meteorological Fecundations;" Solar Theogamies, or Births Due to the Action of the Sun;" "Anthropomorphic Theogamies." These chapter-titles indicate the material and the method of presentation, as well as the related topics suggested thereby. In two closing chapters Saintyves discusses the subject of Christ's birth, which he considers at once solar and anthropomorphic, ranging it thus under the last two of his recognized classes. FREDERICK STARR

Les rites de passage. By ARNOLD VAN GENNEP. Paris: Emile Nourry, 1909. 8vo., pp. ii+288.

The author of this important and original work begins by presenting a classification of rites in general. He recognizes four coupled groups; thus a right may be animistic (personal) or dynamistic (impersonal), sympathetic or contagious, positive or negative, direct or indirect. These characteristic and fundamental forms may be variously combined so that a rite may be dynamisticcontagious, direct-negative, animistic-sympathetic, indirect-positive, etc., etc. Each case presented needs individual analysis and study. Van Gennep then calls attention to ceremonial sequences, which he believes have been sadly neglected: too much attention has been given to one or another detail, little or none at all to sequences. While in actual study, in any given ensemble of ceremonies the greater part of the rites belong to one category, we find other elements entering. Thus, in the midst of a clearly animistic-positive ritual, one encounters a group of dynamistic-positive elements. The purpose of the author is to present what he calls "rites of passage"-i. e., those rites which accompany the passage of the individual from one situation to another, from one world (cosmic or social) to another. These rites have been often presented in detail, from one or another point of view; they have not, heretofore been recognized as identical, nor grouped into one class. Rites of passage include the rites of the doorway and threshold, of hospitality, of adoption, of conception and childbed, of birth, of

infancy, of puberty, of initiation, of ordination, of coronation, of betrothal, of marriage, of burial, of the seasons, etc. To bring all of these into one group and to demonstrate their identity is a synthesis of extraordinary boldness. In every rite of passage Van Gennep recognizes three secondary categories to which he applies the names rites of separation, of marge, and of aggregation. These are not necessarily equally developed in each and every passage rite; one may be reduced almost to the point of disappearance. In closing his preliminary treatment the author distinguishes between theory (religion) and practice (magic) and for him all ritual falls under magic.

The body of the book is devoted to the consideration of the rites of passage. One after another, Van Gennep aims to demonstrate that they are rites of this class, to analyze them into their elements, and to distinguish the three subordinate categories of separation, marge, and aggregation. In his discussion he constantly comes into contact with well-known theories and writers upon special topics. Thus in initiation rites he must consider the views of Schurtz and Webster, in marriage the theories of Crawley and Grosse, etc. When he finds himself in conflict with them, which he often does, it is due to the fact that they have confined their attention to detail elements, neglecting the to him so important sequences. To enter into detailed consideration of Van Gennep's discussion is impossible within our limits of space. We will only say that it gives room for many a lively tilt.

An abstract from his closing chapter will adequately show the author's own view of the purpose and significance of his work. He says:

It is not the rites in their detail which have interested us, but their essential significance and their relative situation in ceremonial ensembles, their sequence. Hence we have given certain rather lengthy descriptions to show how separation, marge, and aggregation rites, as well preliminary as definitive, are situated with reference to one another in view of a determined end. Their place varies according to whether the ritual has to do with birth or death, initiation or marriage, etc., but only in detail. Their tendency disposition is ever the same and under the multiplicity of forms there is ever found, consciously expressed or potential, one sequence type: the scheme of the rite of passage.

The second fact to mention and of which no one seems to have seen the generality is the existence of "marges," which sometimes almost acquire

a certain autonomy-as noviciate, betrothal. This interpretation permits one to easily orientate himself, for example, in the complication of the rites preliminary to marriage and to comprehend the raison d'être of their sequences.

A third point, finally, which appears to me important is the identification of passage through different social situations with material passage such as at the entrance into a village or a house, from one room to another, across the street or from place to place. This is why, so often, to pass from one age, from one class, etc., is ritually expressed by passage under a portal, or by "an opening of doors." This is but rarely a simple "symbol;" for the half-civilized the ideal passage is properly a material passage. In fact, among the half-civilized, according to the usual social organization, there is a material separation of the special groupings. The children, up to a certain age, live with the women; boys and girls live apart from married persons, at times in a special house or quarter, or a special kraal; after the marriage, one or other of the couple, if not both, change dwelling; . . . . In brief, the change in social category implies a change of domicile, a fact which is expressed by the passage rites under their various forms.

....

FREDERICK STARR

Cyrus Hall McCormick: His Life and Work. By HERBERT N. CASSON. Chicago: A. C. McClurg, 1909. Pp. 264.

This volume offers an important contribution to sociology and economics; also to social psychology. It illustrates the dependence of civilization on the food supply, and at the same time brings out the importance of inventive genius in raising the food situation and general culture to a higher level. When we consider that the swiftest mill in Athens in the time of Pericles produced no more than two barrels of flour a day, while one American mill fills 17,000 barrels daily, and further that Mr. McCormick's reaper is responsible for the increased supply of wheat, we can agree that the reaper has a significance in industry comparable to a mutation in species.

The volume is not only charmingly written, but contains details not otherwise available on the relation of the development of an idea to the growth of a nation. It is also a desirable and suitable book to place in the hands of the boy-infinitely more suitable than the detective stories of Conan Doyle.

W. I. T.