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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



Drown was consulting chemist to the 

 Massachusetts State Board of Health 

 till the time of his death. 



In 1895 Dr. Drown was called to 

 the presidency of Lehigh University at 

 a time when that institution's in- 

 fluence was at a low ebb. With rare 

 courage and a faith in the institution, 

 since justified by events, he restored to 

 the university its own wavering faith 

 and waning courage, gave it a good 

 business administration, widened its 

 educational horizons, and, by his sym- 

 pathetic, intelligent guidance, fostered 

 the steady, healthful growth character- 

 istic of recent years. 



During President Drown's adminis- 

 tration the number of students has 

 been increased from 325 to 650. The 

 teaching staff has been proportionally 

 increased and the grades of assistant 

 professor and assistant, characteristic 

 of modern university organization, 

 have been introduced. Mineralogy and 

 metallurgy have been divided into in- 

 dependent departments; likewise geol- 

 ogy has been separated from mining, 

 and electrical engineering from physics. 

 A department of biology, inclusive of 

 bacteriology, has been established, with 

 adequate laboratory equipment, and a 

 department of economics and history, 

 intended equally for students in engi- 

 neering and in arts. The department 

 of philosophy and psychology, for- 

 merly an adjunct to the chaplaincy, 

 has been given its independence, a psy- 

 chological laboratory and courses in 

 pedagogy being added. Hand in hand 

 with President Drown's policy of ex- 

 pansion and differentiation went that 

 of correlation. The School of General 

 Literature has grown steadily by the 

 side of the technical schools, which in 



turn have been increasingly hospitable 

 to the introduction of liberal studies. 

 Dr. Drown had long cherished a plan to 

 evolve a six-year course fitted to 

 furnish both a broad culture and an 

 adequate training for the professional 

 work of the engineer. 



SCIENTIFIC ITEMS. 



It is reported that Nobel prizes will 

 be awarded to Sir William Ramsay in 

 chemistry and to Lord Rayleigh in 

 physics. — The Royal Society has 

 awarded its Rumford medal to Dr. 

 Ernest Rutherford, professor of physics 

 at McGill University, for his researches 

 on radio-activity. 



Professor Charles A. Youxg, who 

 celebrated his seventieth birthday on 

 December 15, will retire from the chair 

 of astronomy at Princeton University 

 at the close of the present year and 

 will become professor emeritus. —Dr. 

 George H. Howison, professor of phi- 

 losophy in the University of Califor- 

 nia, celebrated his seventieth birthday 

 on November twenty-fifth, when he 

 was presented with a Festschrift pre- 

 pared by his former students. 



During the recent excursion of the 

 Eighth International Geographic Con- 

 gress to the Grand Canyon of the Col- 

 orado in Arizona, a meeting was held 

 in memory of Major J. W. Powell, in 

 which his exploration of the canyon, 

 his western surveys and his work as 

 director of the United States Geolog- 

 ical Survey and as organizer of the 

 Bureau of Ethnology were briefly de- 

 scribed. At the close of the meeting 

 it was resolved to erect a monument in 

 memory of Powell on the edge of the 

 plateau overlooking the Grand Canyon. 



