41Z 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES. 



rpiHIS body held its November ses- 

 JL sion in New York, and its meet- 

 ings at Columbia College. In the ab- 

 sence of President William B. Eogers, 

 Vice-President O. C. Marsh filled his 

 chair. The proceedings %vere in a high 

 degree interesting. It is commonly 

 supposed that the disquisitions of this 

 body belong to depths of profundity 

 that are wholly unapproachable by or- 

 dinarily endowed mortals, but this is a 

 quite erroneous view. There are often, 

 to be sure, technical and mathemati- 

 cal papers intelligible only to those pro- 

 ficient in these subjects ; but the prin- 

 cipal topics considered at the recent 

 meeting were not only of general inter- 

 est, but they were so treated that well- 

 instructed people could appreciate and 

 enjoy them. The Academy, however, 

 never bids for a crowd, and if there 

 should be an influx of outsiders it would 

 be immediately inferred that there is 

 something wrong in the working of the 

 association. Of the hundred members, 

 thirty or forty usually get together at 

 the meetings and devote themselves to 

 reporting the results of research, and 

 to the discussion of views presented. 

 There are set papers, of course, but ex- 

 position is largely extemporaneous, and 

 accompanied with blackboard and other 

 illustrations. 



The newspapers have given to the 

 public notices of the main results of the 

 late meeting, all of which will be more 

 fully published in the " Transactions " 

 of tlie Academy, or in the scientific peri- 

 odicals. Among the novel and striking 

 things brought forward was a new 

 method of chemical analysis, by Dr. 

 "Wolcott Gibbs ; Professor Pwood's expe- 

 riments in perfecting the vacuum ; Pro- 

 fessor Langley's researches into the dis- 



tribution of heat in the spectrum, and 

 his new method of measuring infinites- 

 imal amounts of heat ; Professor Hen- 

 ry Draper's photographs of the Orion 

 nebula ; and Professor Marsh's account 

 of a fossil animal with an extra brain 

 at the other end of the spinal column. 

 The progress of the electric light was 

 also critically discussed, and various 

 other important subjects were duly con- 

 sidered. In short, if our friends the 

 Academicians will pardon us, their meet- 

 ing was a " complete success." 



THE STUDY OF GREEK AT CAMBRIDGE. 



We drew attention, a year or two 

 ago, to a movement in England, led 

 by several head-masters of the public 

 schools and other eminent gentlemen 

 interested in education, to secure a re- 

 laxation in the university requirements 

 regai'ding the study of Latin and Greek. 

 The study of Greek was compulsory, and 

 insisted upon as if it were the sole con- 

 dition of turning out an educated man. 

 A petition was sent to the authorities 

 of Cambridge, asking that it be omitted 

 if the student desired to take in its place 

 a modern language. It was remarked 

 that students entering the university 

 "may be the peers of Airy and Adams 

 in pure mathematics, of Tyndall and 

 Huxley in natural science, of a Whewell 

 and a Hamilton in moral science, but 

 they must be able to read a play of Eu- 

 ripides and the Greek Testament, or 

 Cambridge will not have them among 

 its graduates." This state of things was 

 such as to provoke decided protest on 

 the part of liberal-minded men, and 

 hence the public controversy upon the 

 subject, and the petition that forced the 

 issue upon the Cambridge authorities. 

 A late number of the " Lancet " reports 



