November 24, 1923] 



NATURE 



in 



University and Educational Intelligence. 



Cambridge. — The Right Honourable S. M. Bruce 

 has been elected an honorary fellow of Trinity Hall. 

 I Mr. P. J. Durrant, Corpu.s Christi College, has been 

 elected fellow and lecturer in natural sciences at 

 Selwyn College. Mr. R. H. Fowler, Trinity College, 

 has been appointed University lecturer in mathe- 

 matics. 



The desk habitually used by Francis Maitland 

 Balfour and afterwards by Sir Michael Foster — two 

 of the chief founders of the Biological Schools of the 

 University — has been presented by Dr. Michael 

 Foster to the Balfour Library. 



The Annual Report of the Special Board for 

 Agriculture and Forestry shows a falling off in the 

 number of students from the excessive numbers 

 immediately after the War. Amongst the notable 

 events in the year's working of the department are 

 included the completion of the purchase of the 

 University farm, the foundation of the professorship 

 of animal pathology, the organisation of the Horti- 

 cultural Research Station, and the addition of 

 Poultry Sections to the Animal Nutrition Institute 

 and the Genetics Institute. 



Trinity College announces a research studentship 

 open to graduates of Universities other than Cam- 

 bridge, and also exhibitions open to students at 

 present studying at Dominion or Colonial Universities. 



Durham. — The Newcastle and Gateshead Water 

 Company have granted the sum of loo/. to Mr. B. 

 Millard Griffiths, lecturer in botany at Armstrong 

 College, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, to enable him to 

 carry out further researches on the micro-flora 

 (phytoplankton) and the hydrography of the smaller 

 bodies of fresh water. 



Edinburgh. — On November 12, the Right Hon. 

 William Lyon Mackenzie King, Prime Minister of 

 Canada, and the Hon. William Robertson Warren, 

 Ptime Minister of Newfoundland, received the 

 honorary degree of LL.D. At the close of the 

 ceremony, Mr. Mackenzie King delivered a short 

 address on the Imperial Conference, which, he said, 

 had proceeded on sound constitutional lines that 

 would be enduring in the development of the political 

 evolution of the British Empire. 



Liverpool. — The late Mr. William Prescott has 

 bequeathed 20,000/. to the University to found a 

 chair of agriculture or a chair for the furtherance of 

 one or more of the following subjects, namely, the 

 chemistry of agriculture, the cultivation of land, the 

 care, breeding and raising of crops, the diseases of 

 crops, or any other subject connected with agriculture. 

 The University is given twelve months in which to 

 decide whether or not it can accept this gift. 



Mr. William Horton has been appointed honorary 

 lecturer in plant histology. 



Manchester. — Prof. A. V. Hill has presented a 

 «um of 200/. to endow a prize to be awarded for an 

 essay on a biochemical subject. 



Mr. Edgar Morton has been appointed assistant 

 lecturer in economic geology. 



The following have been elected to honorary 

 research fellowships : Dr. E. D'Arcy McCrea, in 

 physiology ; Mrs. Gertrude Robinson, in rlx-nii^irv ; 

 Mr. W. K. Slater, in chemical physiology. 



III! I niversities of Brussels and Montreal both 

 '■port gifts of radium among their benefactions 

 luring 1922-23. The former participates in a gift 

 >f 8 gm. by a mining company to the universities 



of Belgium, and the latter has been entrusted by 

 the Government of the Province of Quebec with 

 ijgm. 



According toWvt British Medical Journal, honorary 

 degrees will be conferred on November 24 by the 

 University of Paris on the following distinguished 

 men of science: Sir J. J. Thomson; Prof. Camillo 

 Golgi, emeritus professor in the University of Pavia ; 

 Dr. W. W. Keen, formerly professor of surgery in the 

 Jefferson College, Philadelphia, and Prof. S. A. 

 Arrhenius, of Stockholm. 



A Clarence Graff fellowship, tenable for one year 

 by a British graduate of Oxford or Cambridge at any 

 American university located between the Allegheny 

 and Rocky Mountains, has been founded by Mr. Grafif, 

 an American banker resident in London. The object 

 of establishing the fellowship, which carries a stipend 

 of 250/. plus tuition fees, is " to foster a better under- 

 standing in Great Britain of social conditions and 

 currents of opinion in the United States of America." 

 The award will be made by a committee consisting 

 of the secretary of the Universities' Bureau of the 

 British Empire, the director and assistant director of 

 the American University Union in Europe, and the 

 vice-chancellors of the Universities of Oxford and 

 Cambridge, and preference will be given to a student 

 of humanitarian studies. Earlier this year (May 5, 

 p. 621) we referred to the foundation of Henry P. 

 Davison scholarships at American universities for 

 Oxford and Cambridge men, and it is noteworthy that 

 in each case the gifts have come from Americans. 

 They will help to swell the very small number of 

 awards at American universities available to British 

 students compared with the 96 Rhodes scholarships 

 at Oxford for Americans. 



Party politics have no place in the columns of 

 Nature, but we are concerned with what is promised 

 or performed by our statesmen or politicians on 

 behalf of scientific progress. We are, therefore, 

 interested in the election address which Mr. H. G. 

 Wells, as Labour candidate for the University of 

 London constituency, has issued, together with a 

 report of a speech on " Socialism and the Scientific 

 Motive." The Labour Party believes, he says, in 

 science and in the scientific motive as a motive 

 altogether superior to profit-seeking. He appeals to 

 university people as people who know something of 

 the work of scientific investigators, artists, men of 

 letters, teachers, and medical men ; who know that 

 none of these work for profit or on the profiteering 

 system, but for service, and that the work they do is 

 infinitely better and more devoted than the work 

 that men do for the profit-making motive. This 

 knowledge should enable them to see that if, in 

 accordance with the doctrines of Labour Party 

 Socialism, collective ownership were to replace private 

 ownership in nearly all the common interests and 

 services of the community, these things would be 

 better managed, especially as the Labour Party 

 recognises " the supreme need of scientific knowledge 

 and the necessary leadership of professionally trained 

 men . . . and teachers." The argument is not 

 altogether convincing, but Mr. Wells is at any rate 

 capable of the philosophic point of view, and if he 

 controlled the policy of the Labour Party, universities 

 would not need to fear inconsiderate treatment at 

 the hands of a Labour Government. One wonders, 

 however, how far his attitude would be likely to be 

 adopted by the people who would determme the 

 policy of such a government. Some of the remarks 

 Dv Labour members in the House of C/Ommons 

 debate on the Oxford and Cambridge Universities 

 Bill were I lie reverse of reassuring on (liis point. 



NO. 2821, VOL. I 12] 



