Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/866

This page has been validated.
846
THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

have occupied chairs in its Faculty may be mentioned Professor Henry D. Rogers; Professor Spencer F. Baird, now at the head of the Smithsonian Institution; and the celebrated Dr. Thomas Cooper, who subsequently became a judge and President of South Carolina College. Judge Cooper, as Professor Himes aptly remarks, was "one of the most remarkable products of the complexity of moral and intellectual forces of the closing quarter of the last century." He was a man of great erudition and independence, and a forcible writer. "A native of England, educated at Oxford, on terms of intimacy with Pitt, Burke, and other leading English statesmen, a resident of Paris during the four months of the Reign of Terror, and enjoying its excitement to the full, he was a radical in politics and a materialist in creed. A friend of Priestley, he shared with the latter his exile from his country, and enjoyed the use of his library and laboratory in Northumberland." Dr. Cooper was elected to the chair of Chemistry and Mineralogy in Dickinson College in 1811, and occupied it for four years. His introductory lecture on chemistry was remarkable for being one of the first scientific lectures published in the country. It was exhaustive, and displayed a wonderful range of information. The lecture itself filled one hundred pages, octavo, and its accompanying notes one hundred and thirty-five pages more. He purchased the telescope, air-gun, and burning-lens used by Dr. Priestley, which are carefully preserved in the college collection.

Professor Himes's account of the growth of the scientific department of the college is interesting as a chapter in the history of education. A revolution is there sketched which it is proposed to consummate in a century of collegiate experience. Although science was becoming active when the college was founded, yet scientific study as a part of education was in its infancy, while theology and cognate subjects were all-prevailing. The first question in regard to science, therefore, was, how it would affect religion. The first President was Dr. Nesbit, an able Scotch divine; and we are told that, on a visit to Governor Dickinson, an evening was spent in the discussion of the theological relations of science, in which Nesbit maintained that, "unless the grace of God produced a different effect, the more intimately men became acquainted with the works of nature, the less mindful were they of their great Author." Theology, therefore, led one way and science another; and yet, under the act of incorporation, of the forty members comprising the Board of Trustees more than one third were required to be clergymen; while every one of the fourteen presidents which the college has had has been a doctor of divinity. It is therefore to be expected that the college would favor the kind of learning that has proved of utility in the avocation of preaching. Important concessions have, however, been made in the direction of liberal studies. There is the ordinary four years' college course with its load of two dead languages, and which is probably much the same as it was a hundred years ago. But there is also a Latin scientific course from which half the dead weight has been unloaded, and so it is brought into three years. But the scientific spirit has made great progress, as is shown by the fact that the centennial of the institution in 1883 is to be crowned by the dedication of a new and elegant building devoted entirely to scientific purposes.

Die Entwicklung des Menschengeschlechtes. Von Dr. Adelrich Steinach. New York: The Author, 122 Allen Street. 1878. Pp. 681. Price, $2.50.

This treatise forms the second volume of a "System of Organic Evolution," but the first volume, "The Evolution of the Plant and Animal World," is not yet published. The author adopts the Darwinian (or evolutionist) point of view throughout, but, unlike most of the German followers of Mr. Darwin, he adheres to that school of philosophy which is opposed to materialism. The present installment of Dr. Steinach's work, "The Evolution of the Human Race," is marked by profound learning and no small degree of originality. We have not space to review it at length, and must content ourselves with briefly indicating its contents. It is divided into three parts, entitled—"I. Man in Space"; "II Man in Time"; and "III. The Evolution of Mind." In Part I. the author considers man in his relations to his environment, and strives to show how his mental and physical develop-