June 15, 191 1] 



NATURE 



539 



During the year under review, the Bureau of Education 

 at Washington received reports from 602 universities 

 colleges, and technological schools in the United States' 

 Of these. 142 are for men only and 352 for both sexes. 

 Ihe entire teaching force of these 602 institutions of 

 higher education numbered 27,279. The aggregate enrol- 

 ment of students reached 301,818, including students in 

 all departments— preparatory, collegiate, graduate and 

 professional. The aggregate of gifts and bequests re- 

 ported by the 602 institutions for the year 1909-10 was 

 3'747'43o'- Of this amount, 1,228,700/. was given for 

 buildings and improvements, 1,954,200/. for endowment 

 and the remainder for current expenses. The largest 

 amounts were received by the following institutions •— 

 ■Columbia University New York, 409,000/. ; Yale Uni- 

 versity, Connecticut, 403,000/. ; Princeton University, New 

 Jersey, 342,000/. ; University of California, 248,000/. • 

 University of Chicago, Illinois, 239,000/. ; and Bryn Mawr 

 College, Pennsylvania, 142,000/. Twenty-seven" institu- 

 tions altogether each received 20,000/. or more during the 

 year. 



The report for the year 19 10 of the council to the 

 members of the City and Guilds of London Institute is 

 now available. During the year a petition was made to 

 the King for a supplemental charter to enable the institute 

 to cooperate more effectively with other bodies in the 

 coordijiation of technological work, more especially in the 

 metropolis, and on December 16, 1910, the supplemental 

 charter was granted, and its provisions are printed in 

 the report. The Imperial College of Science and Tech- 

 nology has obtained from the Commissioners of the 

 Exhibition of 1851 a grant of a large piece of land at 

 South Kensington, on part of which a building is being 

 ■erected which will eventually be added to the Central 

 Technical College, and will with that college form the 

 engineering section of the Imperial College. The enlarged 

 college, towards the cost of which the Goldsmiths' Com- 

 pany has made a grant of 50,000/., will be known as 

 *' The City and Guilds College" (Engineering), thus per- 

 petuating the connection of the institute with the engineer- 

 ing work in London. Among other matters, it may be 

 noted that the course in railway engineering for post- 

 graduate and other duly qualified students, organised by 

 the college in 1908-9 in connection with the Imperial 

 College of Science and Technology, has been continued 

 and considerably enlarged. Reports are included also of 

 the year's work at the City and Guilds Technical College, 

 Finsbury, the South London School of Technical Art, and 

 the Department of Technology. 



In a suggestive article on " Scientific versus Personal 

 Distribution of College Credits " (Popular Science Monthly 

 for April), President William T. Foster, of Reed College, 

 Portland, Oregon, directs attention to the want of a 

 uniform standard in the classification of students in 

 different subjects in American universities and colleges, but 

 his criticisms are equally applicable to similar institu- 

 tions on this side of the Atlantic. Adopting the system of 

 grading students in five classes, of which four represent a 

 pass and the fifth represents failure, the author tabulates 

 for several colleges the percentages of students receiving 

 the several grades in different departments, and the 

 numbers show very large discrepancies. Thus in Harvard 

 College in one year the percentage of students in the 

 highest grade varied from i per cent, in English to 35 

 in Greek; in the second grade from 11 per cent, in English 

 to 33 per cent, in fine arts, and so forth. The result of 

 these discrepancies is that the poorer students seek the 

 courses which give the larger proportions of high grades. 

 The author points out that to all students who are 

 prompted by unworthy motives his charts indicate the 

 easiest way to a degree ; moreover, it is useless to sup- 

 press such information, as students in all colleges are 

 guided by such charts more or less accurately plotted. In 

 the University of Missouri, on the other hand, a system 

 has been introduced of equalising for different departments 

 the percentages of students placed in the several classes, 

 with the result that " we come nearer to knowing what 

 a grade stands for at the University of Missouri than at 

 any other institution in the country." For this ])urpo.se 

 a normal distribution is adopted in which 25 per cent, of 



NO. 2172, VOL. 86] 



middL h2 ^'" '''^ ^'" '^° ^'^^^^^' SO per cent, in the 

 middle class, and 25 per cent, in the fourth and fifth. The 

 author suggests that instructors should be required to 

 Ubulate the actual distribution of grades in their depart- 

 nients each year and that all marked divergences from 

 the normal distribution should be made the subject of a 

 special report. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



LO.NUON. 



Royal Society Juae i.— Sir Archibald Geikie, K.C.B 

 president, in the chair.— Dr. R. Kennedy: Experiments 

 on the restoration of paralysed muscles by means of nerve 

 anastomosis. This communication is the first of three 

 series of experiments on restoration of paralysed muscles 

 by means of nerve anastomosis. The present series 

 consists of ten experiments on monkeys and dogs, in 

 which, after division of the facial nerve, the peripheral 

 segment of the latter was attached to a neighbouring 

 nerve. Sometimes the hypoglossal and sometimes the 

 spinal accessory was the substitute. The experiments also 

 varied in mode of uniting the nerves, and in interval of 

 time elapsing between section of the facial and union 

 with the substitute. Among the conclusions are the 

 following : — Where spinal accessory or hypoglossal is sub- 

 stituted for facial nerve, restoration of voluntary co- 

 ordinated movements of facial muscles is possible. 

 Restoration commences sooner when the hypoglossal is 

 used, although the ultimate results, so far as recovery of 

 facial movements is concerned, do not appear to show 

 much difference. On the other hand, the new paralysis 

 produced temporarily or permanently in the distribution 

 of the substitute nerve is more serious when the hypo- 

 glossal is employed. Where association movements are 

 present in consequence of the anastomosis, these are more 

 objectionable when the hypoglossal is used. As regards 

 interval of time between section of the facial and per- 

 formance of anastomosis, there is no decided difference 

 in date of commencing recovery between immediate anasto- 

 mosis and a secondary anastomosis after the lapse of one 

 month. .'\n addendum gives a report, twelve years after 

 operation, of a case of spino-facial anastomosis published 

 in Phil. Trans., 1901 ; also of a case of facial paralysis 

 of three years' standing in which spino-facial anastomosis 

 was done, and in which recovery commenced three years 

 subsequently. — Sir David Bruce : The morphology of 

 Trypanosoma evansi (Steel). In previous papers published 

 in the Proceedings the morphology of various trypano- 

 somes, such as Trypanosoma pecorum, vivax, uniforme, 

 nanum, and hrucci, has been described somewhat more 

 fully than is usually done. It is proposed to do the same 

 for T. evansi in this paper. This trypanosomc causes the 

 disease in elephants, camels, horses, cattle, and dogs 

 known in India as surra. It was discovered in 1880 by 

 Evans in the Punjab. It is curious that in India this is 

 the only pathogenic trypanosome of the domestic animals 

 which has up to the present been described. In Africa 

 many species are known — in fact, here may be said to be 

 the home of the trypanosome diseases. In Africa these 

 diseases are associated with tsetse-flios. In India there 

 are no tsetse-flies. The carrier of surra has not yet been 

 identified. It is generally thought that surra has been 

 introduced into Africa by means of the camel, but this is 

 by no means established. Up to the present it has been 

 usual to look upon the trypanosomcs of surra and nagann 

 as indistinguishable morphologically. In this paper 820 

 individuals of T. evansi have been carefully measured, 

 and a curve representing the distribution in respect to 

 length made. This curve is very different from that of 

 T. brucei. It is therefore evident there should be no 

 difficulty in future in separating these two species by this 

 means. Again, on comparing the curve of the Indian 

 camel disease with that of the .African, the similarity is 

 very striking, and affords some proof that the two diseases 

 are caused by the same species of trypanosome. — H. S. 

 Stannue and Dr. W, York* : The pathogenic agent in a 

 case of human trypanosomiasis in Nyasaland. During the 

 past three years a considerable number of cases of human 

 trypanosomiasis have occurred in Nyasaland, notwith- 



