January 4, 19 12] 



NATURE 



319 



\ 



may be that the final comparison of year with year 

 will furnish a basis for conclusions which will justify 

 the details and labour of these reports. 



■'The larger waves of migration were not very 

 clearly marked, but there were smaller ones on April 

 12 and 13, and on May 15. The largest movement 

 occurred on May 2, when no less than twenty-five 

 species arrived simultaneously on our coasts." If 

 these facts are really significant, we naturally wish to 

 ■-ee whether they are correlated with weather condi- 

 tions, and the report, like its predecessors, gives us 

 facilities for speculation on this subject by giving a 

 meteorological summary for each day. Special atten- 

 tion has been paid to the conditions observed over 

 the north coast of Spain, the Bay of Biscay, the coast 

 of France, bounding the Bay, the English Channel, 

 and our southern shores. But the report remains firm 

 in affording us neither countenance nor aid in this 

 speculation. We must wait until the ten years are 

 accomplished before there is any relaxation in the 

 conspiracy of silence, which is a thoroughly scientific 

 procedure. 



In saying a moment ago, "if these facts are signifi- 

 cant," we were not indulging in a superiority of tone 

 begotten, of our own enlightenment on the subject; 

 we simplv mean that in the long run the question 

 must be faced whether the net of observation is spread 

 sufficientlv widely, and has mesh sufficiently narrow 

 to warrant one in speaking very definitely of waves 

 of different magnitudes, or, in some cases, of waves 

 it all. It is difificult to get rid of the uncomfortable 

 >uspicion that what is recorded may be in many 

 cases the exceptional, the normal passing unobserved 

 because there is no one there to see. We wish, there- 

 fore, that a large addition to the body of observers 

 throughout England could be secured, so that it might 

 be seen whether a marked narrowing of the mesh is 

 followed by any marked alteration in the general 

 •^onor of the records. It may also be that the detailed 

 comparison of one year with another may afford an 

 answer to our diflficulty. 



There are some interesting remarks in the intro- 

 duction on the variable length of the immigration 

 period. "The immigration of the wheatear (including 

 both races) extended over a longer period than that 

 taken bv any other species, the first arrivals being 

 fihserved on March 6, the last on May iq. Other 

 species occupying a prolonged period were the willow- 

 warbler (March iq to May iq) and the whinchat 

 (March .26 to May 23), while the shortest time seems 

 'o have been taken by the wood-warbler (April 11 to 

 May 6). The average length of the arrival period for 

 jqio was about five or six weeks." 



We may refer also to the provisional classification 

 of the birds observed into four sets according to their 

 general routes, (a) There are those that arrive solely 

 on the western half of the south coast — ring-ouzel, 

 if'd-flycatcher, and landrail; (b) there are those that 

 irive along the whole of the south coast, but first 

 .iiid chiefly on its western half — wheatear, redstart, 

 common vvhitethroat, garden-warbler, chifTchaff, 

 wilk)\v-warbler, spotted flycatcher, swallow, house- 

 martin, sand-martin, and swift; (c) there are those 

 that arrive along the 7t'hole of the south coast, but 

 first and chiefly on its eastern half — whinchat, black- 

 cap, grasshopper-warbler, reed-warbler, nightjar, 

 cuckoo; (d) there are those that arrive along the 

 south-east coast, from Essex to Hampshire — night- 

 ingale, white wagtail, yellow wagtail, tree-pipit, red- 

 backed shrike, wryneck, turtle-dove. This grouping 

 is still, as we have said, provisional; but there is in it. 

 so to speak, the bud of a generalisation. In some of 

 'le items of fact which form the body of the book, 

 lore doubtless lurks the beginning of a discovery. 



NO. 2201, VOL. 88] 



THE POSITION OF TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION 

 IN ENGLAND. 



p\URIXG the last six months or so there have been. 



^-^ issued several reports which deal in broad out- 

 line with the position of technical instruction in Eng- 

 land. The last annual report of the British Science 

 Guild deals with the financial position of higher tech- 

 nical education and with the need lor coordination and 

 centralisation of our resources. Attention is directed 

 to the close connection between scientific research and 

 prosperity of national industries, which more and more 

 closely follows the encouragement of scientific inves- 

 tigations. The report of the Imperial Education Con- 

 ference contained a strong indictment by Mr. J. H. 

 Reynolds, director of higher education for Manchester, 

 of the lack of appreciation of science shown by many 

 political and industrial leaders. The discussion at 

 the Portsmouth meeting of the British Association 

 Section L report on overlapping of educational work 

 brought clearly into view the lamentable truncation of 

 our secondary education, which fails to provide, except 

 in the case of a small minority of pupils, any adequate 

 foundation for higher study of a proper university 

 grade. The Board of Education has quite recently 

 published statistics which emphasise the poor attend- 

 ance of students at places of higher technical instruc- 

 tion. Readers of Nature are already aware of the 

 main facts ; unfortunately they are not sufficiently 

 realised by the general public. 



Present Shortcomings. 



The essential features of the present position appear 

 to be : — 



(i) The low leaving age of secondary schools, and 

 therefore the low standard of entrance into technical 

 schools. The average school life in our secondary 

 schools does not exceed three and a half years, whereas 

 German technical universities require the completion 

 of the full nine years' secondary-school course before 

 admission of fully qualified students. 



(2) The preponderance of evening work in English 

 technical institutions. A few evening students are 

 doing amazingly good work under very difficult condi« 

 tions ; but however creditable this may be, and indeed 

 is, to these overworked men and their teachers, it 

 does not seriously affect the following statement in 

 the latest Board of Education report: — "The total 

 amount of advanced instruction of the kind provided 

 in technical institutions is still disappointingly small. 

 In some of the more important industries, as, for 

 example, engineering, the instruction is largely used 

 by students ; but in a great many others the supply 

 of students is very small. It is to be deplored that 

 there are several schools in which the well-equipped 

 staffs and the excellent equipment practically stand 

 idle in the daytime through lack of students." There 

 are no evening students at German universities. 



(3) The majority of evening students are doing work 

 of a continuation-school character; moreover, for 

 manv of them regular attendance is impossible. 



(4) Speaking generally, technical teachers are under- 

 paid to a degree which in the long run will surely 

 result in impaired efficiency. Incidentally it may be 

 remarked that the value of the annual production of 

 the German chemical industries alone is about 

 50,000,000^.. so that the expenditure by Germany of 

 half a million per annum in excess of England's 

 provision for higher technical instruction yields a good 

 business profit. 



(0 Taking the relative populations into account, 

 England stands below the I'nited States, Germany, 

 and Switzerland as regards the training and output 

 of industrial experts having the highest scientific and 



