BOOK REVIEWS.

Edzicatiori : Its Data and Fivst Principles : By SIKPERCY

NUNN,3rd Edit.
(Edward Arnold and Co., 1945, pp. 283, 7s. 6d.)
For this third edition of his well-known book Sir Percy Nunn made a complete
revision. One entirely new chapter on Intelligence Testing and elementary statistical
procedure has been added. Many other parts of the text have been expanded,
there being in particular more attention to genetic psychology. Other parts have
been re-written wit9 special attention to criticisms which were made of Nunn’s
characteristic views as expressed in the earlier editions.
We must first comment upon the marvellous achievement all this was for Sir
Percy, isolated as he was for all the war years on a remote island far from libraries
and colleagues, and with long delays in posts. The reviewer knows through his
personal correspondence a t this time, how Nunn delighted in the arrival of some new
book after waiting months for it, and the difficulties he overcame in fighting ill-
health to get his work completed. Yet, in spite of all this, his confident optimism
and generous judgment of his fellow men shines through the pages of the book.
As most readers will know the criticisms of earlier editions turned largely
upon what seem to be Nunn’s extreme expressions of individualism and on his
resting the aims of education primarily on a biological basis. The revised edition
does a good deal to meet some of these criticisms, but Nunn, in his final writings,
still stands firmly by his main principles as originally enunciated. Thus in the first
chapter he writes (p. 12) :
“ We shall stand throughout on the position that nothing good enters into the

human world except in and through the free activities of individual men and
women, and that educational practice must be shaped t o accord with that truth.
This view does not deny or minimise the responsibilities of a man to his fellows ;
for the individual life can develop only in terms of its own nature, and that is social
*
as truly as it i s ‘ self-regarding
I.”

Later he states a principle that goes even further, especially in the words 1
have italicised :
“ Educational efforts must, it would seem, be limited to securing for everyone

the conditions under which individuality is most completely developed-that is to

enabling him to make his original contribution to the variegated whole of human
life as full and as truly characteristic as his nature permits, the form ofthe contributian
being left to the individual as something which each must, in living and by living,
forge out for himself.”
Even those, however, who feel that Nunn stresses too much the freedom of the
individual in determining his work and life and to some extent minimises the
M c u l t i e s in harmonising the claims of the individual and society will agree that
the book, especially in this final form, remains one of the greatest on Education of
this century. I still think that the book is much more valuable for the more
advanced student of Education than as an introductory book for the student in
training. Individual chapters, however, that deal especially with the practical
application of Nunn’s principles, e.g., the one on “ Play ” and that on Freedom in
I‘

Education,” may well be read even by the novice. C.W.V.

Modern Teaching Practice and Technique : By J. H. PANTON,

M.A. (Long-
mans, Green and Co., pp. vii + 298, 8s. 6d.)
This is an excellent practical handbook intended primarily for those in training
under the Ministry of Education’s Emergency Scheme ; but its usefulness is wider
than this and it might serve as a welcome refresher for those of us who have been
away from teaching during the war years.
Beginning with a condensed summary of the psychological principles of learning
and of general mental development, Mr. Panton proceeds to the application of them
to the development of skills, knowledge and the more difficult field of taste. He ends
with sections on various methods of teaching, on lesson preparation, on the develop-
ment of character and finally on the teacher himself. Throughout, the viewpoint
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48 Book Reviews
is that of the teacher more preoccupied with a real task than with abstract
generalities and the concrete illustrations drawn from a wide experience have great
value.
The author is rather chary and sparing in his references to the admittedly
difficult subject of the emotional development of children. Experience suggests
that in the post-war period and at least until more settled conditions have obtained
for some years, the teacher is likely to be faced with a rather larger crop of
behavioural problems than was usual before 1939. It would perhaps have been well
to have enlarged the scope of the book to touch more fully on this topic and to
indicate sources of outside help with the pre-neurotic and neurotic child.
The Content of Education : Interim Report of the Council for Curriculum Reform.
(University of London Press, Ltd., pp. 197, 8s. 6d.)
This piece of re-thinking on the principles which should make the framework
of our education appears most appositely. Its authors are not extremists pushing
views because they are new nor can their commentary upon the timidities and
conservatisms of the Norwood Report be called merely partisan. Their aim is not
to present in detail concrete proposals for the treatment of subject matter but
rather, through the study of the equally important needs of the child and of society,
to outline a dynamic education for a modern world. Individual teachers may be
disturbed by some iconoclasms, but must admit the sincerity of the reasoning which
prompts them.
The symposia upon the Arts and upon Moral and Religious Education, the
chapters on Languages, Mathematics, Natural and Social Sciences, which form
the bulk of the book, bear the stamp of individual thinking and have the stimulating
quality which comes from the expression of differing viewpoints. The final sections
dealing with unsolved problems and the plea for widespread research, a plea which
dominates the book as one of its major themes, are a sharp revelation of what we
do not know about the whole field of education.
Habit and Heritage : By FREDERIC WOODJONES, D.Sc., F.R.S., F.R.C.S.
(Kegan Paul, 1943, 5s. Od.).
Are characters acquired by an individual during lifetime hereditable ?
In the case of plants, certain acquired characters are definitely hereditable.
Short-time man-made experiments with animals have not been so conclusive, but
Nature has had unlimited time for modifications to become part of the germinal
inheritance. Dr. Wood Jones, in his investigations in embryology and anatomy
combfned with his studies of habit, shows that certain acquired characters become
part of the inheritance of the organism. Squatting habits in the case of Asiatics
and Australian aborigines have produced definite facets on bones which can be seen
in young children long before they could have been produced by their own habits.
In the case of animals, feeding habits, toilet habits and means of locomotion have
produced changes which have been acquired from a long succession of ancestors
and which have become part of the common heritage of the race. This involves
great sociological implications but the time-factor militates against experiments in
human societies with changing conditions of life, work and environment. G.C.
Controlled Projection (1944) : By J. C. TIAvEN, M.Sc. (H. K. Lewis and Co.,
London, pp. 78, 12s. 6d.)
This book makes available the material and experimental technique of a new
method of personality and temperamental diagnosis. Its author makes no claim
t o full experimental validation beyond the fact that he used the method in a few
hundred cases and has found it suggestive. Unfortunately, although some detailed
examples of cases are published, the author refrains from even a tentative evaluation
which would have added immeasurably to the value of the book as a stimulus to
further experimental work in a field where reliable techniques are urgently necessary-
It is unfortunate too that there is neither the briefest table of contents nor
even page numbering.