146 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



We have noticed the stimulating effect of much of Poincare's work, which is 

 partly due to the modern methods of publication. There are some remarks made 

 by Sir William Ramsay, in his reply to a toast after a public luncheon given on the 

 occasion of the opening of the Rice Institute, which seem to bear on the subject. 

 Speaking of the danger of having too large classes of students in a University, he 

 recommended that the number of assistants to a Professor should not be increased 

 but the number of entirely separate departments should be increased. Learned 

 men cannot, he points out, be made like needles or wire or nails, but each student 

 must come into personal contact with his teachers. It seems that this Platonic 

 view ought, perhaps, to be rubbed into our British educational authorities rather 

 than into such authorities in America. The importance of personal contact has 

 never been lost sight of in America : we need only remember the wonderfully 

 broadminded conditions under which Sylvester held his professorate at Johns 

 Hopkins University. 



What seems to be an even greater need at the present time is the provision of 

 means whereby an intending investigator may keep abreast of the huge flood of 

 literature on scientific subjects. It is — partly at least— owing to the modern 

 conditions spoken of by Prof. Volterra that men of science publish their work in 

 short communications at different times and perhaps in different periodicals. 

 The personal element is preserved, in many cases, because we are present, so 

 to speak, at the discovery of what is discovered ; but it becomes necessary to 

 have a complete and critical index, a thread to follow in the maze of scientific 

 literature. This seems to be one of the things that can be undertaken by a 

 prosperous University, and by such a University alone. Hitherto the work of 

 this kind has almost wholly been left to Germany. Now, apart altogether from 

 certain national prejudices which undoubtedly appear in many German accounts 

 of other nations' work, and thus affecting both the completeness and the value of 

 the criticism, we are faced with the problem that, for reasons which reduce 

 to financial ones, no European country except Germany ever has been able to 

 undertake such a work on a large scale, while Germany itself will probably 

 be unable to do its part for some time to come. One of the distressing results of 

 the intolerable (to others) government of Germany is that what is good in Germany 

 — good intentions of some of its scientific men — has its power weakened. 



It only remains to point out one or two printer's or other mistakes in these 

 noble volumes. The word "the" is sometimes superfluous — at least to British 

 ears : thus " the Nations" (p. 321) and " the mathematical analysis " (p. 984). In 

 the note on p. 273 it is confusing that the title of a book is translated, although 

 the book has not been translated into English, but this confusion is not always 

 made (for example on p. 336). In the notes on pp. 1041 and 1042 the text of the 

 Italian is not translated, as if " Vedz" and "<? seg." were part of the title of a book 

 or a paper. On pp. 399 and 428 the word " vigorous " appears instead of 

 "rigorous"; and on p. 400 the word "exactly" is wrongly used: Fourier cannot be 

 said to have proved his theorem exactly (that is, rigidly) ; what the original seems 

 to have meant is that this theorem was exactly what Fourier proved — or rather, 

 made very probable. 



