IT is the fate of many symposia to fail as a whole by the very excellence of the parts; relationship and proximity as well as stars are needed to form a constellation; and this unsatisfactoriness of ensemble is all too manifest in this well-intentioned volume that the Master of Downing has gathered together rather than edited, to which Lord Moulton contributes an introduction. Individually the chapters are of the utmost interest to the general reader; they give him compactly and authoritatively a sound idea of the scope and value of contemporary work in chemistry, physics, botany, geology, medicine, mathematics, and anthropology by such eminent Cambridge hands as Profs. Pope, Bragg, Hobson, Biffen, Wood, Nuttall, and Gowland Hopkins; and it is only when his heart, glowing responsively, demands, And in return for all these benefits, in a lively hope of more to come, in the desire for more to come, what do you want the general public to do for you? that the book becomes ineffective. This is not for want of a common intention. There are clear indications of a common intention to cry up pure science and to insist upon the importance of scientific studies and scientific research, but the cry never becomes more than a vague cry, and the need of the present time is for definite proposals. The present reviewer, who is a journalist very anxious for the advancement of science and very eager to serve it if he can, turns from this book with an uncomfortable sense that scientific men have still to develop a definite policy with regard. to schools and colleges and higher education. They do not seem to realise how far science progress is bound up with these matters. Science and the Nation. Essays by Cambridge Graduates, with an Introduction by the Rt. Hon. Lord Moulton. Edited by Prof. A. C. Seward. (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1917.) Price 5s. net.