634 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



To begin with, however, I think it would be better, as Sir Henry Cowan, M.P., 

 has suggested to me, to make the scheme optional. The first step would 

 apparently be for the new Parliament to allot sufficient funds to the Board of 

 Education to enable it to take over some of the military camps, as these become 

 available, for an experimental trial of the system. 



I do not propose that this camp training should replace the daily physical 

 raining given in schools — as Lord Gainford seems to have thought in his address 

 to the Association of Assistant Masters. The camp training should be in addition 

 to the physical school training. Few people will, I think, admit that twenty to 

 forty minutes' physical training in school yards, even though given daily, will 

 produce anything like the effect on the young which will be produced by the 

 system outlined above. 



For the young people of our great cities, at least, mere removal into fresh air 

 once every year during the summer will be an incalculable benefit. Lord Lever- 

 hulme, who from his own work and experience in this line is entitled to be 

 considered our leading authority, tells me that he is entirely of my opinion. But 

 I am only making a suggestion, and the details must be worked out by others. I 

 am glad, however, that the idea appears to have been received with interest in 

 many quarters. 



The Teaching of the History of Science 



The Scientific Monthly for September 191 8 contains an excellent article on the 

 Teaching of the History of Science, by George Sarton of the Carnegie Institution. 

 In criticising the attitude of professors of Philosophy, who seem to think that 

 the history of science is taught when they speak of Thales, Pythagoras, and 

 Democrates, he says : "The chief requisite for the making of a good chicken pie is 

 chicken ; nay, no amount of culinary legerdemain can make up for the lack of 

 chicken. In the same way, the chief requisite for the history of science is 

 intimate scientific knowledge ; no amount of philosophic legerdemain can make 

 up for its absence." This is quite right ; but we must also remember that the 

 history of science contains many great dramas which are, or should be, of 

 poignant interest to all people of intelligence, because each drama ends in a climax 

 which implies a definite advance of the whole human race. The great discoveries 

 such as those of the Calculus and of Evolution, were really the most important 

 events which have ever happened to humanity, excepting only one or two grea t 

 moral teachings such as Christianity. 



The Discovery of the Calcnlus 



There has probably never been a more important find in the domain of the 

 History of Science than what may be called the recent discovery of the dis- 

 covery of the Calculus. Every one has heard of the long and sometimes bitter 

 controversy between Newton and Liebnitz and their followers as to which of 

 these great men actually gave us the great Calculus ; but we are apparently 

 indebted to Mr. J. M. Child for having ascertained and demonstrated that the 

 honour really belongs to Isaac Barrow. Three years ago, Mr. Child translated 

 and edited Barrow's Geometrical Lectures (Lectiones Optica et Geometries, 1669 

 and 1670), and while doing so concluded that "Isaac Barrow was the first inventor 

 of the Infinitesimal Calculus ; Newton got the main idea of it from Barrow 

 by personal communication ; and Leibnitz also was in some measure indebted to 

 Barrow's work . . . from the copy of Barrow's book that he purchased in 1673." 

 The translation, with numerous notes and a description of how the editor made 



