TILE FEOGBESS OF SCIENCE. 



191 



siderable number from South America. 

 The American college was directly 

 modeled on the corresponding institu- 

 tions in England and Scotland, and it 

 would probably have been an advan- 

 tage, both educationally and from the 

 point of view of international rela- 

 tions, if we had kept in closer touch 

 with the British university. The will 

 of Cecil Rhodes was an attempt to 

 promote artificially such relations, and 

 there is every reason to believe that 

 it Avill meet with a fair degree of suc- 

 cess. Ninety students from the United 

 States residing at Oxford will con- 

 tribute to the development of the uni- 

 versity and will bring back to America 

 the traditions of English education 

 and culture. From the point of view 

 of this journal, the entrance require- 

 ments and part of the curriculum at 

 Oxford are a medieval survival, and 

 the opportunities for advanced work 

 in science are limited. But no one who 

 has been brought intimately in contact 

 with the Oxford life can fail to realize 

 its charm. The influence on a few 

 American students scattered over the 

 whole country will surely be of advan- 

 tage to them and to our relations with 

 Great Britain. The American university 

 presidents who have been given control 

 of the administration of the Rhodes 

 scholarships have decided to require 

 residence at an American college before 

 the student proceeds to Oxford. This 

 is contrary to the intentions of Mr. 

 Rhodes and appears to be scarcely 

 justifiable from an educational point 

 of view. For undergraduate work, Ox- 

 ford possesses peculiar attractions. It 

 would be better for a student to go 

 through the B.A. course at Oxford and 

 then pursue graduate studies in Ger- 

 many or America, rather than to re- 

 verse the order. It may be remarked 

 incidentally that Cambridge now offers 

 admirable opportunities for research 

 students in the natural and exact sci- 

 ences, quite equal to those of the Ger- 

 man universities, and that these should 



be more largely used than is at present 

 the case. 



A few years since America was al- 

 most outside the limits of European 

 vision. In order to meet foreign schol- 

 ars it was necessary for us to go 

 abroad. But these conditions are 

 changing rapidly. European men of 

 science, and scholars singly and in 

 groups, are continually going up and 

 down over the land. The most emi- 

 nent representatives of science and 

 learning from Great Britain, Germany, 

 France and other nations visit us in 

 order to teach and to learn. Just now, 

 for example, we are entertaining the 

 educational commission organized by 

 Mr. Mosely. Some thirty of the more 

 active and eminent British educators 

 were invited by Mr. Mosely to visit 

 America as his guests, in order to 

 make a study of our educational sys- 

 tem from the primary school to the 

 university. The commission includes 

 scientific men, such as Professors Arm- 

 strong, Ayrton, Frankland and Mac- 

 Lean. A visit of this character will 

 conduce to Anglo-American amity and 

 the improvement of educational meth- 

 ods. An even more interesting event is 

 promised for next year, when more 

 than a hundred leading European men 

 of science and scholars will visit the 

 United States to take part in the Con- 

 gress of Arts and Science, organized in 

 connection with the St. Louis Exposi- 

 tion. 



MENTAL AND MORAL HEREDITY. 



The Popul.\r Science Monthly has 

 had the privilege of printing two of 

 the four Huxley Memorial Lectures, 

 given before the Anthropological In- 

 stitute of Great Britain^that on Hux- 

 ley by Lord Avebury and that on the 

 ' Improvement of the Human Breed ' by 

 Dr. Francis Galton. The latter sub- 

 ject is continued by the last lecture of 

 the series given by Professor Karl 

 Pearson, who in general is carrying 

 forward the quantitative work on 

 heredity which owes so much to Dr. 



