July 7, 1923] 



NA TURE 



25 



are names which will always live, not only in the 

 history of the- Garden but also in that of botany. 

 In more recent times, Bayley Balfour and Sydney 

 Vines have maintained the great traditions of the 

 Garden so that, in despite of difficult times which 

 have occurred in the past and may recur in the 

 future, the permanence and usefulness of the Garden 

 are assured. 



The chairman of the curators, Sir Herbert Warren, 

 whose knowledge of the Garden extends over fifty 

 years, in the course of a delightful speech in which 

 he referred to the love which the Garden has 

 inspired in the minds of Oxford men, omitted to 

 mention the great and beneficent part which he 

 himself has played in steering the Garden through 

 the recent difficult years when costs have been so 

 high and the financial resources of the University have 

 been so strained. In helping the Garden to meet 

 the financial difficulties inherent in these times, 

 the University has shown wisdom and understanding 

 that, it may be hoped, will touch the imagination 

 of a generous benefactor and make the Garden secure 

 for all time, not only as a place of botanical study, 

 and as a repository of herbaria of historic and present 

 importance, but also as a quiet sanctuary wherein 

 men who love plants may study and admire them. 



Prof. Seward, who in the absence of Lord Ullswater 

 spoke on the subject of gardens as aids to botanical 

 teaching and research, congratulated the University 

 on the fact that gardens and laboratories, library 

 and herbarium, were all assembled in one site. He 

 referred to the generosity of Mr. Reginald Cory and 

 other benefactors in aiding the Cambridge Botanical 

 Garden to maintain itself, and expressed the belief 

 that the value of the work done at Oxford and the 

 need for assistance required only to be known to 

 ensure the supplementing of existing resources by 

 private benefaction. 



After the formal ceremony the visitors, who 

 numbered some 500, inspected the gardens and 

 laboratories, admiring particularly the famous tank 

 houses wherein the blue water-lilies {Nymphcea 

 zamibarensis, N. gigantea, and N. stellata) thrive 

 with amazing fioriferousness in company with many 

 other Nymphseas, Nelumbium speciosum, the white 

 rose-tipped Egyptian Bean of Pythagoras, Cyperus 

 papyrus, graceful and historical and the source of 

 the papyrus of antiquity, and a large assemblage of 

 aquatic and marsh plants, all of which are of interest 

 and collectively give a memorable impression of 

 luxuriance which few parts of the tropics can rival. 



After tea in the gardens the ceremony terminated, 

 the departing guests averring that few among them 

 had realised so clearly as they now did the vital part 

 which botanic gardens play and have played in the 

 social life of civilised communities. 



University and Educational Intelligence. 



Edinburgh. — Prof. F. Gowland Hopkins, Cameron 

 prizeman for 1922, delivered two lectures in the Uni- 

 versity on June 27 and 28 respectively, on the present 

 position of the vitamin question. The Cameron 

 prize, which was founded in 1878, is awarded annually 

 to an investigator who in the course of the five years 

 immediately preceding has made an important addi- 

 tion to practical therapeutics. 



Sheffield. — Dr. P. J. Daniell has been appointed 

 to the Town Trust chair of mathematics. 



An Edward K. Dunham lectureship has been 

 established at Harvard University in memory of the 

 late Prof. E. K. Dunham, for many years professor 

 of pathology in the Bellevue and University Medical 



NO. 2801, VOL. I 12] 



College of New York City {Science, June 15). Accord- 

 ing to the terms of the gift, which is made by Prof. 

 Dunham's widow, the lectures are to be given annually 

 by eminent investigators and teachers in medical 

 science or one of the contributory basic sciences, 

 and there is no restriction as to the nationality of 

 the lecturer. It is hoped that the foundation may 

 " serve to bind closer the bonds of friendship and 

 understanding between students and investigators 

 in this and foreign countries." 



An outline of President Harding's plan for re- 

 organising the educational activities of the Federal 

 Government was given by the United States Com- 

 missioner of Education at the recent annual meeting 

 of the Department of Superintendence of the National 

 Education Association. The plan is a part of a 

 comprehensive scheme, foreshadowed by the President 

 in his first message to Congress and presented to the 

 Senate in February, for a reorganisation of all the 

 executive departments, including the establishment 

 of a department to promote citizenship and general 

 welfare. The educational work now carried on by 

 some thirty separate agencies, belonging to six of the 

 principal departments and several independent 

 establishments, is to be included along with certain 

 other services, the whole costing at present 700 million 

 dollars a year, in a new Department of Education and 

 Welfare comprising education, public health, social 

 service, and veteran relief. The Division of Educa- 

 tion, which will be under a permanent assistant 

 secretary, will take over, inter alia, in addition to the 

 Bureau of Education and the Board for Vocational 

 Education, the Smithsonian Institution, including 

 the National Museum and Art Gallery, the Inter- 

 national Exchange Service, the Bureau of American 

 Ethnology, the Astrophysical Observatory, the 

 National Zoological Park, and the International 

 Catalogue of Scientific Literature, and will create and 

 direct an entirely new bureau for promoting physical 

 education. The scheme is to come before Congress 

 in December. 



The work of the University of London during the 

 year 1922-23, measured by the usual statistical 

 standards, shows a notable expansion. The Principal 

 Officer, while careful to point out that the great mass 

 of the university's continuous achievement is the 

 expression of imponderable forces, directs attention 

 to figures 75-200 per cent, higher than the corre- 

 sponding figures for 191 3-14, and points out that 

 " we have passed well beyond the wash of what was 

 commonly regarded as the abnormal demand for 

 educational facilities that followed the great deliver- 

 ance of 1918 " ; the figures are as follows : admissions 

 (8498), candidates for degrees (3 191), candidates for 

 matriculation and registration (19,985), and other 

 examinations (7663), and internal students (8881). 

 There has been a noticeable decrease in the percentage 

 of successful to total candidates from 53 in 191 3-14 

 to 32 in 1922-23. The " growth of ignorance " 

 among the younger generation to which Prof. John 

 Burnet directed attention recently in the Romanes 

 lecture is apparently not confined to Scotland. 

 Indicative of the ever-growing specialisation of the 

 subjects of the curricula is the increase in the number 

 of Boards of Studies from 27 with 374 members in 

 1900 to 42 with 1 05 1 members. That the senate is 

 alive to the dangers incidental to this specialisation 

 and resolved to guard against them is shown by its 

 creation of a Board of Studies in " the principles, 

 history, and method of science," designed to embrace 

 not only the natural and mathematical sciences, but 

 also logic, ethics, history, pedagogy, economics, 

 linguistics, archaeology, scholarship, and medicine. 



