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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



the masses, however, which has begun in 

 the board schools, and is destined to widen, 

 will necessitate a like improvement in all 

 the grades above them. The English are 

 nevertheless gaining in artistic development, 

 and the freedom of choice and the individu- 

 ality of the English artist arc beginning to 

 tell abroad, and English taste in architect- 

 ure and ornamental design is rapidly sup- 

 planting Continental. It is to England that 

 Germans come for Christmas-cards, original 

 ornamental pottery, patterns for embroid- 

 ery, etc. ; " and, in Vienna lately, I could 

 scarcely buy a souvenir that was not adorned 

 with cuttings from Kate Greenaway's charm- 

 ing crudities." The Royal Commissioners 

 on Technical Education show in their re- 

 ports that, among the French, it is not in 

 the technical education of the ordinary 

 working-classes that the differences 6ought 

 are to be found; and the reports of the 

 French commissioners reveal a state similar 

 to that prevailing in England, so far as 

 their ordinary workmen are concerned. 

 Schools of arts and trades have been estab- 

 lished, but their pupils expect to be fore- 

 men, not workmen. Apprenticeship schools 

 have also been started, with more prom- 

 ising results. The best and most successful 

 technical schools are in Switzerland and 

 Germany, and conform, as a rule, to Pro- 

 fessor Ayrtoun's definition, that they are 

 not a school where the manipulation or rou- 

 tine of a trade is taught, but one where a 

 lad receives general instruction in the prin- 

 ciples of applied science, and special in- 

 struction in the application of those princi- 

 ples to the particular trade he is following, 

 or which he is about to follow. In them 

 everything is taught that can be gained at 

 the universities, except the dead languages, 

 while modern languages and the applica- 

 tions of modern science to art and industry 

 are added, with such thoroughness that 

 nearly all the leading men of England have 

 found it desirable to spend some years in 

 Germany. In the Pohjtcehnikum at Zurich, 

 Professor Meyer teaches chemistry in a pure- 

 ly scientific direction, irrespective of any 

 practical application ; then Professor Lunge 

 treats the chapters which refer to practical 

 applications, at greater length, and enters 

 into a number of details relating to various 

 chemical industries, placing the technical 



side foremost, but laying the principal stress 

 on explaining the scientific principles un- 

 derlying the applications. Models of every 

 kind of mechanical action and of every kind 

 of machine are found, but manual labor is 

 excluded ; while the student in architecture, 

 for instance, has to work out the strains of 

 every floor or roof or specialty in construc- 

 tion, and to delineate the same in skeleton 

 diagrams attached to every plan he draws ; 

 and the mechanical draughtsman is not 

 given a subject to copy, but only the parts 

 of a machine, which he has himself to piece 

 together, thus thoughtfully working out in 

 practical draughtsmanship the theory he 

 has been taught to apply constructively. 

 The highly educated young men from these 

 polyteclinilcums finally become masters when 

 they can, but are not ashamed, till then, to 

 act as foremen of manufactories, etc. 



M. RespigM on the Light of Comets. 



M. Kespighi, admitting the fact that a part 

 of the light of comets is due to the reflec- 

 tion of solar light, is of the opinion that it 

 is yet too soon to decide that any part of it 

 is a proper light due to the comet's own 

 incandescence. He believes that the dis- 

 continuity of the comet's spectrum, and the 

 bright lines or bands, may proceed from 

 light modified by passing through the masses 

 of vapors or gases, of which the cometary 

 bodies are composed. It is certain, he ob- 

 serves, that a large part of the cometary 

 light comes from the interior of the bodies, 

 and passes through extensive strata of va- 

 pors, in which it is subjected to a select- 

 ive absorption that causes it to give lines 

 different from the Fiaunhofer lines of the 

 sun. So we may have both the weak but 

 complete spectrum produced by the light 

 reflected from the outer strata in which the 

 absorption has been insensible, and another 

 spectrum coming from the deeper parts, 

 with which the absorption has been greater. 

 This view is confirmed by M. Rcspighi's 

 spectroscopic observations of comet h, 1SS1. 

 The phenomenon, he observes, is of a simi- 

 lar nature to that of the dark bands of the 

 spectrum of the sun in the horizon, but is 

 greatly exaggerated in the case of the comets 

 by the enormous volume of the vapors, the 

 richness of their chemical composition, and 

 the feebleness of the light they reflect. 



