(1) Human Behaviour: a First Book in Psychology for Teachers (2) Inductive versus Deductive Methods of Teaching: an Experimental Research (3) How I Kept My Baby Well (4) Minds in Distress

Abstract

(1) IN their text-book on “Human Behaviour,” Prof. Colvin and Prof. Bagley have endeavoured to formulate the main principles of psychology in terms of conduct. For the immature and inexperienced teacher they believe that a “functional” viewpoint is the more helpful. The topics they have selected are those most closely related to the practical work of the schoolroom. Memory, habit, instinct, feeling, emotion, attention, economical learning, higher thought-processes—these are discussed far more fully than is usual in teachers' text-books. The treatment is throughout concrete. Each principle is formulated with a lucidity that is almost dangerous; and enforced with a wealth of illustration that is almost too convincing—drawn as it is from classroom practice or from everyday life more often than from the psychological or educational laboratory. Experimental work is by no means ignored. But detailed references to it are rare in the text and rarer in the bibliography. The “immature and inexperienced teacher” might easily gain the impression that a few simple and uncontrolled observations, followed by many clear and plausible inferences, are the surest guide to final generalisations upon the most complex problems of human and animal behaviour. Of its class, however, this book is undoubtedly one of the best.

(1) Human Behaviour: a First Book in Psychology for Teachers.

By Prof. S. S. Colvin Prof. W. C. Bagley. Pp. xvi + 336. (New York: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1913.) Price 4s. 6d. net.

(2) Inductive versus Deductive Methods of Teaching: an Experimental Research.

By W. H. Winch. Pp. 146. (Baltimore, U.S.A.: Warwick and York, Inc., 1913.) Price 1.25 dollars.

(3) How I Kept My Baby Well.

By Anna G. Noyes. Pp. 193. (Baltimore, U.S.A.: Warwick and York, Inc., 1913.) Price 1.25 dollars.

(4) Minds in Distress.

By Dr A. E. Bridger. Pp. xi + 181. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1913.) Price 2s. 6d. net.