September i, 1923] 



NA TURE 



147 



higher than that of elementary and high-school 

 teachers, including principals, most people fail to 

 realise the importance of this service or, indeed, to 

 •Xwe the subject any thought at all, with the result 

 that most janitors are selected and appointed for 

 personal or political reasons rather than on the basis 

 of merit, and many are incompetent and physically, 

 mentally, and morally unfit. Tn view of the large 

 ' ontrol exercised by them over health conditions, 

 specially as regards cleanliness, air, and light, their 

 moral inflvience, and the high importance of their 

 work educationally as setting standards of house- 

 keeping and taste, and financially as affecting the 

 preservation of valuable property, it is surprising that 

 this is the first comprehensive study of the subject 

 ■ hat has been published in America. 



The teaching of civics and the encouragement of 

 activities making for good citizenship have received 

 a large and increasing amount of attention in the 

 t'nited States since the War. Numerous pamphlets 

 and leaflets issued by the Bureau of Education on 

 " lessons in civics in the elementary grades," " pre- 

 paration of teachers of the social studies for secondary 

 schools," boy-scouts and girl-scouts, " lessons in 

 community and national life," " Americanisation," 

 " the teaching of civics as an agency for community 

 interest and citizenship " (by the Commissioner of 

 Education), etc., have recorded and stimulated the 

 movement. The last of the series is Bulletin, 1922, 

 No. 45 on " Status of certain social studies in high 

 schools." This gives the results of an investigation 

 conducted by the Bureau in 1922, and compares them 

 with the facts revealed by a similar inquiry in 191 9. 

 Important changes have developed in the treatment 

 of civics and economics in the schools, the tendency 

 i)eing to make the courses more practical and to deal 

 \ith modern social and economical problems instead 

 )f merely with the machinery of government and 

 •conomic theory. Of the 13,000 largest high schools 

 of the country to which a questionnaire was sent in 

 1922, half sent replies, and of these 88 per cent, offer 

 instruction in civics, most of the courses being 

 obligatory, and 41 per cent, offer courses in economics, 

 more than one-third of which are obligatory. 



Some recent developments in educational journalism 

 are described by Prof. Carson Ryan of Swarthmore 

 College, in Bulletin 25 of 1923 of the United States 

 Bureau of Education. The technical educational 

 journals have been hard hit by the rise in costs of 

 production and have with difficulty held their own. 

 Of the 144 journals listed in the bulletin not more 

 than 10, with an aggregate circulation of less than 

 (o.ooo, attempt to deal with educational problems in 

 a national way free of associational connexions. 

 Forty-eight State and associational periodicals have 

 an aggregate circulation of 234,800. They include 

 the Journal of the National Education Association, 

 which in less than two years has attained a circulation 

 of 130,000. Educational journalism in the daily 

 newspapers has maintained itself effectively and 

 improved in quality. Although the daily " school 

 page " is still maintained by about 10 per cent, of the 

 chief American dailies, the present tendency in 

 newspaper treatment of education is away from such 

 departmental methods : " educational " news should, 

 it is considered, not be so labelled and should compete 

 with other news for position. On the part of school 

 and college authorities there is a marked disposition 

 to welcome and co-operate with newspaper men. 

 For example, one reporter was allowed to go through 

 i lie schools of the city, sitting each day in a class-room 

 imong the pupils, to write a day-by-day first-hand 

 account of schooling in all the grades. 



NO. 2809, VOL. I I 2] 



Societies and Academies. 



Paris. 



Academy of Sciences, July 30. — M. Guillaume 

 Bigourdan in the chair. — Gabriel Bertrand and B. 

 Benzon. A kind of physiological mutation observed 

 in mice. During the study of the effects of the 

 addition of a trace of zinc to the food of mice in the 

 absence of vitamins, one mouse survived eleven 

 weeks before showing any svmptom of trouble, 

 while all the other animals lived only from three to 

 five weeks. — V. Grignard and M. Dubien : The con- 

 densing action of the mixed magnesium alcoholates, 

 ROMgX. The alcoholates of the type CgHg . O . Mgl 

 produce energetic condensation of aldehydes and 

 ketones, aldols being formed. — Jean Chazy. The 

 field of gravitation of two fixed masses in the theory 

 of relativity. — Th. Varopoulos : The number of 

 exceptional values of multiform functions. — Ch. 

 Maurain, A. Toussaint, and R. Pris : The measurement 

 of air resistance on railway material. An account of 

 the results of experiments carried out on a model 

 train, one-twentieth real size. — Albert Portevin and 

 Fran9ois Le Chatelier : Obtaining, by heat treatment, 

 light aluminium alloys of high tensile strength not 

 containing magnesium. The effect of the temperature 

 of tempering is given for an aluminium alloy (4-3 per 

 cent, copper, o-8 per cent, manganese, 0-38 per cent, 

 silicon) and the results contrasted with alloys of the 

 duralumin type containing magnesium. — Andre Job 

 and Gu)^ Emschwiller : The photochemical reduction 

 of zinc sulphide. Phosphorescent zinc sulphide 

 suspended in air-free water and submitted to ultra- 

 violet radiation from a mercury lamp gives metallic zinc 

 and free sulphur, some centigrams of zinc per hour being 

 formed. — MM. Wertenstein and Jedrzejewski : The 

 evaporation of carbon. The rate of evaporation (m) 

 of carbon filament has been determined at tempera- 

 tures between 2800° and 3500° C. absolute, and the 

 results are in accord with the equation 



log m =14.19 - 47iO°o - 1.25 log T. 

 T 



From this, 5100° C. abs. is deduced as the boiling 

 point of carbon. — P. Lebeau : A method of thermal 

 fractionation of gases arising from the carbonisation 

 of solid combustibles. The fuel is heated in a vacuum 

 to temperatures increasing by steps of 100° C, and 

 the gas pumped out at each stage and analysed. The 

 results with seven fuels of different type are given 

 in a diagram. — Rene Reich : New organometallic 

 compounds : copper phenyl and silver phenyl. 

 Copper phenyl has been isolated as the result of the 

 reaction of dry cuprous iodide on an ethereal solution 

 of phenylmagnesium bromide (in an atmosphere of 

 nitrogen). The product is unstable, giving copper 

 and diphenyl at 80° C. Copper ethyl proved too 

 unstable to isolate, although there were indications 

 of its formation. Silver phenyl was prepared by a 

 similar reaction; under ether, at - 18° C, it is com- 

 pletely decomposed in a few hours into silver and 

 diphenyl. — L. Bert : Bromodiphenylmethane and the 

 Grignard reaction. The main product of the reaction 

 of magnesium on bromodiphenylmethane is tetra- 

 phenylethane. — M. Pastureau and H. Bernard : A new 

 method of passing from mesityl oxide to tetra- 

 meth^dglycerol. — Alphonse Mailhe : The preparation 

 of petrol starting with animal and vegetable oils. 

 Rape oil, heated with zinc chloride, has been shown 

 in an earlier communication to give rise to low 

 boiling hydrocarbons. It is now shown that various 

 other animal and vegetable oils behave similarly on 

 heating anhydrous zinc chloride. — R. Fos.se, Ph. 



