February 29 191 2J 



NATURE 



589 



admission ac sixteen, and so to do in the early part 

 •of their courses work which might very well be left 

 to the secondary schools. It is, therefore, desirable 

 that the age for the award of the secondary-school 

 certificate should be gradually raised to eighteen, as 

 (>reat Britain slowly awakes to the need of education, 

 ill order to enable us to compete on equal terms with 

 foreigners. But at present this would be a useless 

 ' ounsel of perfection. 



The secondary-school testamur is to be given to 

 , Lipils of about the age of fifteen, and the committee 

 suggests that great care should be taken to distin- 

 guish it " both in name and value from the secondary- 

 >chool certificate." But this will be extremely difficult, 

 and to give an alternative certificate of this kind will 

 probably damage education in several ways. It will 

 offer an inducement to a still larger number of pupils 

 to leave secondary schools even earlier than they do 

 at present. A not inconsiderable portion of the general 

 |)ublic may very well think that a "testamur," which 

 is a word less known to them than " certificate," is 

 H thing of at least as great value; for to. them omne 

 ignotum pro niagnifico est. There would be less objec- 

 tion to the proposed testamur if and when the certifi- 

 cate was given at the age of about eighteen, for there 

 would then be a sufficiently wide gap between the 

 standards to prevent the possibility of confusion. 



The committee's suggestions in regard to the 

 examinations council are, however, the most impor- 

 tant. This council is to be of a representative 

 character, including not only persons of educational 

 experience, but also some with a knowledge of what 

 is wanted by recruits for the professions, commerce, 

 or industrial life. On the educational side there would 

 be representatives of the Board of Education, the 

 universities, the local authorities, and teachers in 

 different kinds of schools. 



The council would be entrusted with the important 

 duty of regulating external examinations in secondary 

 schools aided by the Board of Education, and would 

 derive its power from the fact that no such school 

 would be allowed to enter its pupils for external 

 examinations other than those which the council con- 

 ducted or approved. The inspectors of the Board of 

 Education would place their experience at the disposal 

 of the examinations council, so that the work of 

 examination and inspection might be properly co- 

 ordinated. 



There can be little doubt that the formation of such 

 a council would be of the greatest possible service, 

 provided, of course. Parliament gave it sufficient 

 authority to ensure that its decisions were respected. 

 But the committee thinks that as a preliminary step 

 the existing examining bodies might be asked by 

 the Board of Education to confer together In order 

 to see whether, by mutual consent, steps can be taken 

 to bring about the state of affairs which the com- 

 mittee desires. It is very doubtful whether such a 

 conference would meet with any considerable measure 

 i)f success, though it is just possible that if, before 

 ( onvening the conference, the Board of Education 

 made it evident that the existing examination swamp 

 must be cleared, the examining bodies might find it 

 • xpedient to agree to an amalgamation. For some of 

 the vested interests could be considered; the majority 

 of the existing examiners would probably be still 

 employed, and even the officials and clerical staffs 

 might be taken over by the new examinations council. 



The committee wisely advises that, if the proposed 

 conference be held, and it is found that those con- 

 cerned will not voluntarily agree to modifications of 

 the present system on the lines indicated, the Board 

 should not consider itself to be relieved of respon- 

 sibility, but should proceed to the formation of a 



NO. 2209, VOL. 88] 



representative examinations council with the powers 

 mentioned above. 



All the members of the committee signed the report 

 with the single exception of Mr. Jackman, who objects 

 to the proposals mainly on the ground that pupils in 

 elementary schools will not be able to obtain the 

 secondary-school certificate, and may, therefore, find 

 their path to promotion barred. Some years ago this 

 argument would have had considerable weight, for the 

 " free place " system had not then come into being. 

 Now, however, many pupils of the secondary schools 

 come from the elementary schools, and it may fairly 

 be said that in a large part of the country no bright 

 child in an elementary school is precluded by poverty 

 from the advantages of secondary education. If it be 

 alleged that there are other parts of the kingdom where 

 such exclusion takes place, then, surely, it would be 

 better to take steps to modify this state of affairs 

 rather than to block a most important reform affect- 

 ing not merely secondary but also higher education. 

 It is to be hoped, therefore, that the majority of teachers 

 in elementary schools will not oppose the proposals 

 set forth in the report of the committee, which bears 

 the signature of Mr. Sharpies, a respected member 

 of their profession, who would not support any 

 system likely to injure either elementary schools or 

 their pupils. J. Wertheimer. 



THE PRISM-BINOCULAR. 



/^ NE of the many revolutions which have been 

 ^-^ quietly proceeding in the last few years has 

 been the introduction of the prism-binocular in place 

 of the old form of opera- or field-glass. In 185 1 

 an Italian, Ignatius Porro, devised a very ingenious 

 and yet simple arrangement of prisms by which 

 the simple astronomical telescope might yield an erect 

 image. An instrument was constructed with these 

 prisms by Boulanger, in 1859, and again in 1875 by 

 Nachet, the firm so well known in connection with 

 the binocular microscope. Neither of those makers 

 succeeded in making it popular, however, probably 

 partly because of the quality of the glass of which 

 the prisms were made, and partly because the prisms 

 were not well enough worked to give good images — 

 the light is four times reflected, and it is obvious that 

 if the reflecting faces are not all perfectly flat the 

 definition will be seriously impaired. In 1893 Ernst 

 Abbe designed an instrument, making use of the new 

 glass obtained by Schott ; the resulting "prism- 

 binoculars " made under the modern conditions were 

 an Immediate success. The faces of the prisms are 

 tested by Newton's bands of colour. These bands 

 must be perfectly straight right up to the edge. The 

 refracting surfaces are tested, as well as the reflecting, 

 though perfection of the latter Is the more important. 



The advantages of the new form of opera-glass over 

 the old are the great field of view and depth of focus, 

 with a higher power. The Image is not quite so 

 bright, and therefore for night work the old form 

 is best. In the old form, the field of view depends 

 on the diameter of the objective as imaged by the 

 eye-lens, and with even a moderate power the diameter 

 has to be large; thus the glasses are clumsy. In 

 the new form the field Is Independent of the diameter 

 of the objective, and when there Is plenty of light 

 the latter can be made quite small. 



The new glasses are made by several firms, and 

 we have recently had the pleasure of Inspecting some 

 of the models made by the firm of Leitz, with mag- 

 nifications ranging from four diameters upwards. 

 The chief feature which their glasses possess over 

 others, we have seen, is their lightness, due to the 

 construction of the bodies of nickel-steel tubes, which 



