}vsE 8, 191 1] 



NATURE 



503 



Romney Marsh, Chesil Beach, Plymouth Sound. The 

 lectures are addressed to advanced students of geology of 

 the University of London and to others interested in the 

 subject. Admission is free, without ticket. 



We learn from Science that a Bill has been signed by 

 which the Massachusetts Institute of Technology will 

 receive 20,oooZ. annually from the State for ten years. 

 By the terms of the measure, the institute will maintain 

 eighty free scholarships to be apportioned among the forty 

 senatorial districts of the State. The California legisla- 

 ture has passed a Bill, which has been recently signed, 

 appropriating 5000/. for a soils laboratory building, equip- - 

 ment, and other improvements at the Citrus E.xpcriment 

 Station. The work of the laboratory is to be confined to 

 the study of citrus soils. The legislature of Hawaii has 

 voted 15,000/. for a new building for the College of 

 Hawaii and 4000L for maintenance expenses. 



The report has been issued (Cd. 5662) of the Depart- 

 mental Committee appointed to inquire into the administra- 

 tion of (a) endowments the income of which is applicable, 

 or is applied to or in connection with, elementary educa- 

 tion, ancl (b) small educational endowments other than the 

 above, in rural areas, the application of which to their 

 proper purposes presents special difficulties ; and to con- 

 sider how far under the existing law it is possible to 

 utilise them to the best advantage ; and whether any, and, 

 if so, what, changes in the law are desirable in the direc- 

 tion of conferring ujx>n county and other local authorities 

 some powers in respect of such educational endowments 

 or otherwise. The committee makes a number of recom- 

 mendations, which are summarised in the report under 

 twenty-two headings. Especially important is the proposal 

 that, subject to certain exceptions and modifications, county 

 councils in their capacity as local education authorities 

 under the Education Act, 1902, should perform the func- 

 tions at present performed by the Board of Education with 

 regard to the administration of the endowments within the 

 terms of reference, that there should be an appeal to the 

 Board of Education from any scheme made by a local 

 education authority, and that the range of educational 

 objects to which trustees may apply their funds should be 

 widely extended. It is also recommended that the local 

 education authority should have the same powers of 

 demanding accounts and investigating the administration 

 of charities as are at present exercised by the Board of 

 Education, but that the Board of Education should have 

 a concurrent power of demanding accounts, though 

 trustees will no longer be under anv obligation to render 

 accounts to the Board. Certain of the suggestions are 

 not made unanimously, and memoranda at the end of the 

 report provide particulars of the points on which some few 

 members of committee do not agree with the main 

 recommendations. 



Attention has recently been directed to a somewhat 

 anomalous situation which had come into existence during 

 the last few years in connection with medical education. 

 The General Medical Council exercises a supervising 

 control over the standard of the tests required by the 

 various qualifying authorities in this country. In the 

 regulations published by the Council, students are required 

 to study the preliminary sciences at an institution recog- 

 nised by the council, and after passing an examination in 

 general education when above sixteen years of age. The 

 council requires no elementary science at all in the general 

 education. These regulations, which are obviously designed 

 to make sure that students shall not scamp their literary, 

 for the sake of their scientific, education, and that they 

 shall study elementary science imder generous conditions, 

 probably achieve their purpose satisfactorily for a certain 

 'ass of student. But, since public schools are not recog- 

 ^ed by the council as places where elementary science 

 111 be studied, they evidently do not meet the case of the 

 very large number of boys who enter the medical pro- 

 fession from the public schools. The difficulty has been 

 met in the past by the fact that those qualifying authori- 

 ties most used by public-school boys have not confornifd 

 to the regulations of the council. For though termed 

 " regulations," they are not legal rpquimments, but more 

 in the nature of recommendations. Thus the Conjoint 

 Board of London and the I'nivf-rsiti's of Oxford, Cam- 



NO. 21 71, VOL. 86] 



bridge, and London, the professional tests of which are 

 beyond suspicion, allow students to pursue the study of 

 the preliminary sciences at the public schools. Hence a 

 boy following the usual school curriculum, and working 

 at elementary science as part of his general education, has 

 been able to offer himself for examination in these subjects 

 on leaving school at eighteen or nineteen years of age. 

 Recently,' however, an increasing number of boys have 

 gone from public schools to the newer universities and other 

 authorities where they have to conform to the require- 

 ments of the Council. To observe the regulations, these 

 boys have had to study again the elementary science which 

 they have already, in many cases, satisfactorily done at 

 school. Representations have been made to the council by 

 the public schools directing attention to the ditTiculty thus 

 raised ; and on May 29 last at the meeting of the General 

 Medical Council a resolution was proposed by Sir Henry 

 Morris to remove the disabilities from which public-school 

 boys suffer by " recognising " the schools under certain 

 conditions. 'J'his resolution was adopted by 24 votes to 5. 



The fifth annual Conference of the Association of 

 Teachers in Technical Institutions was held at Southport 

 on June 5. Mr. Barker North, of the Bradford Technical 

 College, in his presidential address, said that during the 

 year the membership of the association increased by more 

 than 20 per cent., and branches were formed in Ireland 

 and \\ales. More than 50 per cent, of the full-time 

 technical teachers of England and a large percentage of 

 the part-time teachers are now in the association, which is 

 the only organisation representing all grades of the pro- 

 fession. Many technical institutions, he said later, suffer 

 from the unsatisfactory nature of the constitution of educa- 

 tion committees, and he urged the co-option of experts to 

 remedy the present lack of special knowledge. Mr. North 

 gave a tabular statement from the recently published 

 census of production which shows that the net output in 

 the nine leading industries of the country rose with an 

 increase in the percentage of salaried persons. This 

 suggests that, within certain limits, the employment of a 

 large number of skilled technologists would develop the 

 industry into higher forms and increase productivity. The 

 state of the chemical industries shows how fatal is the 

 system of limiting the employment of research chemists. 

 Referring to the reforms necessary in education, he argued 

 for the closer affiliation of continuation schools with the 

 higher institutions ; the work of the former should be a 

 real continuation of that of the primary schools, and in 

 technical institutes and universities provision must be made 

 alike for the rank and file of the industrial army and for 

 their officers — the second type being evolved from the first 

 by means of natural selection. The defects of the present 

 system would be remedied by drafting the best of the 

 evening students systematically into day courses and by 

 concentrating them for the highest class of work in 

 specialised institutions. .Such institutions should be 

 affiliated to form technical universities. On these lines, 

 he thought, the development of the Imperial College should 

 be carried out. The time is ripe, said the president, for 

 the appointment of another Royal Commission, with 

 broader terms of reference than those assigned to the pre- 

 sent, so that the whole question of the organisation of 

 higher technical education in this country may be subjected 

 to an exhaustive inquiry. Papers were read by Prof. 

 W. \\. Haldane Gee and Mr. T. J. Burnett, and resolu- 

 tions were adopted urging the formation of an .\dvisory 

 Council on Technical Education, consultative committees 

 of teachers, the representation of teachers on education 

 committees, and advisory committees for juvenile employ- 

 ment. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Faraday Society, May 2. — Mr. James Swinburne, F.R.S., 

 president, in the chair. — A. Scott-Han*en : Hydro-electric 

 plants in Norway and their application to electrochemical 

 industry (see p. 501). — Edgar Stanafleld : Two simple 

 forms of gas-pressure regulators. The two regulators 

 described give a steady pressure, easily adjusted, not 

 influenced by the rate of flow of the gas. They consist 

 merely of an outer containing vessel into which water is 



