20–15542
The book belongs to the New-world science series edited by John W. Ritchie. It is based on a collection of 2000 questions asked by school children in the upper elementary grades over a period of a year and a half. These questions are sorted and classified according to the scientific principles involved in answering them. The object of the method is to lead the child from an interest and curiosity in a specific phenomena to a general principle and to arouse his imagination by making it clear to him what part it plays in his own life. The contents are grouped under the headings: Gravitation; Molecular attraction; Conservation of energy; Heat; Radiant heat and light; Sound; Magnetism and electricity; Electricity; Mingling of molecules; Chemical change and energy; Solution and chemical action; Analysis. There are appendices, an index and illustrations.
“The book should be of value in conserving and developing the science interests of children of junior high-school age.”
+ El School J 21:154 O ’20 350w
WASSERMANN, JACOB. World’s illusion; auth. tr. by Ludwig Lewisohn. (European library) 2v *$4 (1½c) Harcourt
20–22159
This is the first book by this author, a Viennese novelist, to appear in English. It was written, he says, during the last years of the war: “Only in this way could I keep contact with and faith in humanity.” It has nothing to do with the war, but is a picture of pre-war society in central Europe, a brilliant, feverish picture of a society in the first hectic stages of decay, resting on insecure foundations of poverty, misery and crime. The first volume is devoted to the life of the upper classes, represented by Crammon, the Austrian aristocrat, Christian Wahnschaffe, son of a German captain of industry, Eva Sorel, the dancer, and almost countless others. The scenes flit from capital to capital with the haste and inconsistency of a screen drama. In the second volume we have in contrast the dregs of society, for Christian, in search of truth, has descended to the lowest depths. He gives up his fortune, studies medicine to fit himself for a field of usefulness and in the end cuts himself off entirely from his family and disappears, to continue his search elsewhere.
“Despite the penny-dreadful stuff there is a breath of serenity that reveals the artist in complete mastery of his material and despite the frank consideration of sex, there is an indubitable chastity hovering over all these pages. In fact, were one to select a single word with which to describe the mood of the work as a whole, he would most probably say, austerity.” I. G.