Professor Groves has given us a stimulating essay on rural sociology. For those who are not afraid of work it breathes a practical optimism in its recognition of the innumerable factors available for a practical constructive program of rural betterment. He lays down the guiding principles underlying such a program of ways and means and his arguments are the more convincing coming from one who has lived in the rural community and knows it from the inside. The aspect of the book which must particularly appeal to readers of this review is his recognition of the psychological importance of the instincts for any understanding of human behavior. Under this head he includes roughly for practical purposes the herd instinct, the instinct of self-assertion, the parental and the sex instincts, fear, pugnacity, curiosity, workmanship, acquisition and play. His chapter on the country church and the rural mind is particularly good.

White