August i i, 1923] 



NATURE 



22 1 



has also been a notable development of short summer- 

 vacation courses (mainly in London) for foreign 

 students as well as of other summer courses, to which, 

 although not planned expressly for them, foreigners 

 are admitted. Interchange of school teachers (for 

 periods not exceeding one year) between England and 

 Wales and the Dominions overseas has been organised 

 by the League of the Empire on a large scale, and other 

 bodies such as the Overseas Educational League and 

 the Fellowship of the Maple Leaf, are engaged in 

 similar enterprises. 



Several European countries participate in exchanges 

 financed by American educational endowments. The 

 Commission for Relief in Belgium Educational 

 Foundation of New York arranges, in concert with the 

 Fondation Universitaire of Brussels, grants for study 

 in American Universities to Belgian graduates and 

 vice versa (in 1921-22, 34 and 24 respectively). The 

 American-Scandinavian Foundation similarly allots 

 40 travelling fellowships, each of 1000 dollars, and 

 the Franco-American Scholarship Exchange, ad- 

 ministered by the American Council on Education, 

 provides 50 scholarships for French women in 

 American colleges, 28 for American women in French 

 lycees and ecoles normales, and 22 fellowships for 

 American graduates in French universities. 



In France the Doctorat d'Etat has been made more 

 accessible to foreign graduates, a system of exchanges 

 of professors has been arranged with certain American 

 universities, and the summer - vacation courses for 

 foreign students in vogue before the War have been 

 re-established and extended. In 19 ig a Franco- 

 Swiss interuniversity conference took place, and in 

 192 1 a convention was concluded, between the French 

 and Belgian ministries of public instruction, to 

 encourage and regulate the exchange of professors 

 and students and to establish a permanent technical 

 commission for the study of questions regarding the 

 scientific, literary, artistic, and scholastic relations 

 between the two countries. 



In the same year, 1921, were formed the Nether- 

 lands Committee for International Academic Relations 

 and the Office Central Universitaire Suisse. 



The Confederation Internationale des fitudiants, 

 formed in 19 19, has contributed substantially in co- 

 operation with its affiliated national unions, towards 

 familiarising students with the idea of migration. 

 The National Union of Students of England and 

 Wales, constituted in 1922, has been very active in 

 promoting visits by students to universities in foreign 

 countries. 



In the nineteenth century one of the most powerful 

 influences making for migration of students was the 

 great reputation of the German universities for 



profound learning and for primacy in scientific 

 research, together with their liberal conditions of 

 entrance. In the United States especially a German 

 doctorat^e came to be looked upon as a normal cul- 

 mination of the studies of an ambitious youth. The 

 tradition was fostered by the system of exchange of 

 professors arranged by the Prussian ministry of educa- 

 tion with American universities. Before the War, 

 however, a reaction had set in, due in part to the 

 rapid development of the American graduate schools. 



The League of Nations decided last year to enter 

 the field of International Education, and a Committee 

 on Intellectual Co-operation, having a sub-committee 

 on Interuniversity Relations, is actively engaged in 

 devising ways and means of stimulating movements 

 and enterprises such as those mentioned in this 

 article, including the establishment of an international 

 bureau of university information. 



The question of interchange of students has an 

 economic aspect which deserves study. At the 

 present time students from abroad constitute about 

 eight per cent, of the full-time students in the uni- 

 versities and university colleges of the United 

 Kingdom. Statistics showing the number of students 

 from the United Kingdom in universities and colleges 

 in all other countries are not available, but those in 

 the United States in 1920-21 numbered 181, and those 

 in other parts of the world are certainly very few 

 compared with the total of more than four thousand 

 students from abroad in the British Isles. Is the 

 fact that our imports so largely exceed our exports to 

 be accounted economically advantageous to us or the 

 reverse ? The fees paid by students represent, of 

 course, only a fraction of the costs of maintenance of 

 the institutions where they study, and in universities 

 such as Oxford, Cambridge, London, and Edinburgh, 

 which are frequented by students from abroad in 

 large numbers, the additional expenditure necessitated 

 by their attendance is probably not compensated by 

 their fees ; but there is a more important question 

 in regard to the students who come to Great Britain 

 to study technology. When they go back to their 

 own countries they take with them knowledge which 

 is used so as to make the competition of their countries' 

 industries with our own more formidable. On the 

 other hand, they are likely to recommend the placing 

 of orders for stores and machinery in the country in 

 which they have studied rather than in other countries, 

 and if they had not come to Great Britain for their 

 knowledge they would probably have obtained some- 

 thing very like it elsewhere. It may be that such 

 students do British industries more good than harm. 

 The matter is one on which it is desirable that further 

 light should be, if possible, obtained. 



Botanical Surveys. 



T^HE Department of Agriculture of South Africa 

 ^ has recently issued two memoirs (Nos. 3 and 4) 

 on the botanical survey of South Africa. The former, 

 by S. Schonland, entitled " Introduction to South 

 African Cyperaceae," is a systematic account of a 

 selection of the indigenous sedges, many of which 

 play an important part in the prevention and cure of 

 soil erosion, and a knowledge of which is essential in 

 the study of the relations of sour and sweet veld. 

 A description of the general structure of the vegetative 

 organs, the inflorescence, the difficulties in the inter- 

 pretation of which are discussed in some detail, the 

 flower and the fruit, is followed by notes on all the 

 South African genera, including representative species 

 of each. The species are illustrated by seventy 

 carefully drawn plates, which show the habit of the 

 plant and enlarged details of flower and fruit, and 



NO. 2806, VOL. 112] 



will enable the student to identify any species included 

 in the limits of the book. The general arrangement 

 is the one adopted in the " Flora Capensis " by the 

 late Mr. C. B. Clarke, to the thoroughness of whose 

 work Dr. Schonland pays high tribute. The critical 

 remarks included in the notes on the genera render 

 the work of value to others than the South "African 

 student of this family. 



Memoir No. 4, entitled " A Guide to Botanical 

 Survey Work," is a series of chapters, by different 

 experts, which will be helpful to those engaged in the 

 South African survey. Dr. Pole Evans reiterates the 

 organisation and aims of the survey, and describes 

 briefly the characteristics of the two main botanical 

 regions, the true Cape region, with a vegetation 

 resembling in its general aspect that of the Mediter- 

 ranean area, and the South African region, which 



