226 



NA TURE 



[AuGusi II. 1923 



mission of fees, together with a maintenance grant of 

 100/. per year. Further particulars and forms of 

 application may be obtained from the Secretary of the 

 College. 



A REPORT on " Health for School Children " pre- 

 pared by the National Child Health Council's advisory 

 committee on health education has been published 

 by the United States Bureau of Education as School 

 Health Studies No. i. Its keynote is given in the 

 following words : " It is essential that health shall 

 not be regarded as an isolated subject. . . . Health 

 motives and practices should permeate the whole 

 school life and work. Methods of teaching health, of 

 illustrating health, and of living health cannot be 

 torn out or set apart from the child's life, but should 

 be woven into its very fabric." It follows that all 

 elementary-school teachers must be indoctrinated 

 with proper health ideals and principles and inspired 

 with an active appreciation of their importance ; 

 and likewise that the active co-operation of parents 

 must be sought. Normal schools must give all 

 students a grounding in general science (chemistry, 

 physiology, bacteriology, and biology), personal 

 hygiene, community and social hygiene, and nutrition, 

 including fundamental instruction regarding foods 

 and normal growth ; but even more essential than 

 instruction in these subjects is attention to the Ixealth 

 of the students themselves, for " better far a young 

 teacher thoroughly well and with some enthusiasm 

 for health and no methods, than one who is even a 

 little neurotic, a trifle hollow-chested, but method- 

 perfect." In summer sessions normal schools should 

 make health courses obligatory. The committee is 

 considering the publication of a bibliography. 



" Philanthropy in the history of American higher 

 education " is the subject of a bulletin (1922, No. 26) 

 of the United States Bureau of Education prepared 

 by Prof. Sears, of Stanford University, California, 

 The writer, summing up the results of his researches, 

 observes that although the " dead hand " may be 

 said to rest in some degree upon most of the institutions 

 of higher education, their vitality is not appreciably 

 affected thereby. This is attributed partly to colleges 

 and universities refusing gifts to which undesirable 

 conditions are attached, and partly to the good sense 

 generally evinced by benefactors. A description is 

 given of a new type of foundation which is said to be 

 coming rapidly into favour. It combines some of the 

 characteristics of a joint-stock company with those 

 of a public trustee. The Cleveland Foundation, the 

 first of this type, has for its object " the mental, moral, 

 and physical improvement of the inhabitants of the 

 city." It receives gifts and bequests, however small, 

 and whether accompanied by any expression of 

 wishes as to their disposition or not, but undertakes 

 to respect such wishes only in so far as shall seem to 

 the board of directors wise and beneficial. The 

 members of the administrative committee are ap- 

 pointed partly by the mayor, the judge of the probate 

 court, and the federal district judge, and partly by 

 the trustee company which manages the principal 

 as a single trust. Prof. Sears does not allude to the 

 injurious effects on college administration of the 

 habit of looking to philanthropists for gifts, yet it is 

 notorious that college presidents have sometimes 

 been chosen mainly on the ground of their supposed 

 efiiciency as soliciting agents ; nor does he mention the 

 all-important consequence of so-called benefactions — 

 that they must, in the end, to use the words of another 

 writer on this subject, " involve a personal responsi- 

 bility and a personal scrutiny : somebody must sweat 

 blood with gift money if its effect is not to do more 

 harm than good." 



NO. 2806, VOL. I 12] 



Societies and Academics. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, July 16.-M. .-Mbin Hallcr 

 m the chair.— L. C. Jackson and H. Kamerlingh 

 Onnes : 1 he magnetic properties of gadolinum 

 ethylsulphate at low temperatures. The determina- 

 tion of the magnetic susceptibility of the powdered 

 salt at temperatures ranging between 14°- 56 K. (the 

 lowest temperature obtainable with liquid hydrogen) 

 and 29i°-5 K., showed that gadolinum ethylsulphate 

 obeys Curie's law, the product of the molecular 

 susceptibility and the absolute temperature was 

 constant. A single large crystal, the salt, although 

 crystallising in the hexagonal system, was found to 

 be magnetically isotropic— J. B. Senderens and J. 

 Aboulenc : The catalytic preparation of the amino- 

 cyclohexanols. Para- and ortho - nitrophenol are 

 reduced by hydrogen under pressure (50 atmospheres) 

 in the presence of nickel as catalyst. The reduction 

 takes places in stages ; at 90° C. aminophenol is 

 produced, but if the temperature is raised to 180° C. 

 additional hydrogen absorption occurs and amino- 

 cyclohexanol is obtained. — Charles NicoUe and E. 

 Conseil : New facts concerning measles. Preventive 

 vaccination. Conditions of contagion. The serum 

 of convalescents confers a temporary immunity from 

 infection : serovaccination, an injection of serum 

 from a convalescent, followed 24 hours later by 

 injection of blood from a patient with measles, 

 confers a longer immunity. Contrary' to the accepted 

 view, the author maintains that one attack of measles 

 does not confer permanent immunity, but a recurrence 

 of the disease may be so mild (a rise of temperature 

 only without eruption) that the nature of the disease 

 on the second attack may escape recognition. — 

 Philip Fox : Measurements of stellar parallax at the 

 Dearborn Observatory. Data for 31 stars are given; 

 each figure is derived from measurements of from 

 II to 21 photographs. — M. Holweck : A high-power 

 lamp for wireless telegraphy with removable parts. 

 Diagram and description of a triode lamp of 10 kilo- 

 watt type now in use for postal serv^ice at the Eiffel 

 Tower station. The lamp can be taken to pieces, 

 the joints being either rubber or ground glass. For 

 maintaining the vacuum, the lamp is permanently 

 connected with the helicoidal molecular pump, 

 described in an earlier communication {Comptes 

 rendus, 177, p. 43). — A. Dauvillier : An experimental 

 verification of the theory' of Rontgen ray spectra due 

 to a multiple atomic ionisation. — Pierre Auger : The 

 secondary i3-rays produced in a gas by- the X-rays. 

 By a modification of C. T. R. Wilson's method, taking 

 simultaneous photographs in two perpendicular 

 directions, information has been obtained about the 

 trajectories of the electrons torn from the atoms of 

 a gas by a bundle of X-rays. — M. Escher : The 

 polonium carried • down with bismuth hydrate in 

 soda solution. When an acid solution containing 

 bismuth and polonium is precipitated with soda, the 

 polonium is distributed between the precipitate and 

 the solution. The distribution of the polonium 

 between the two phases is a function of the number 

 of molecules of bismuth and of soda present in a 

 given volume of the mixture. Two sets of experi- 

 mental results are given in graphical form. — N. 

 Yannakis : The vapour pressures of mixtures of 

 hydrochloric acid and water. — P. Mondain Monval : 

 The allotropic transformation of ammonium nitrate 

 at 32° C. From the law of solubihty given by Le 

 Chatelier, it follows that two varieties of the same 

 salt having different latent heats of solution .should 

 have different solubility curves, and at their point of 



