830 



NATURE 



[August 25, 1921 



as lecturer on anatomy and physiology at .Charing 

 Cross Hospital ; among his pupils were Huxley and 

 Fayrer. In 1840 he was elected to the Royal Society. 

 From 185 1 to 1881 he was professor of ophthalmic 

 "medicine and surgery at University College. . His 

 thirty years of teaching and writing failed to shield 

 him in later life from miserable poverty ; he fell out 

 of the running. He was found at last, in the bitter 

 winter of 1880-81, "crouched over a fireless grate, his 

 shoulders hunched up under a mass of shawls and 

 shabby wraps, the picture of destitution . . . not only 

 very ill, but penniless and starving." Friends saved 

 him, and collected money for him ; Huxley and Fayrer 

 obtained from Mr. Gladstone a Civil List pension 

 for him; Jenner obtained a Tancred pension for him. 

 The work was ended in London, and lop the last ten 

 years he lived in a couple of tiny rooms in a cottage 

 in Ventnor. /( 



And here is the immense value of/thfs memoir : that 

 we are able to see why Wharton f ones\made a better 

 job of science than he made Xkf life. ! His intense 

 individualism, his combativen^ss, his opposition to the 

 Darwinian new learning, fi is perverse liking for small 

 personal grievances, his oddities of dress — these 

 hindrances, none of them insuperable, yet were com- 

 bined to keep hi^n back from anything like the full 

 happiness o^^itecess. " He seems to have missed," 

 says Sir Rickmart Godlee, "by so little, much that 

 might have made him happy and successful. But this 

 little made all the difference. . . . When all is said, it 

 is impossible to believe that, on the whole, he had 

 more than a verv moderate share of happiness, or 

 even of contentment." 



Perhaps, as there are martyrs of science, so there 

 are profiteers of science, men who inflate the value of 

 scientific discoveries or seek to "corner" scientific 

 facts. Wharton Jones was neither martyr nor pro- 

 fiteer. Only he could not get clear away from self- 

 preoccupation ; and it is a rather unhappy and per- 

 plexed face that looks out at us from the frontispiece 

 of this masterly study of him. 



University and Educational Intelligence. 



Cambridge. — Baron R. von Hugel has resigned the 

 curatorship of the Museum of Archaeology and 

 Ethnology, and Dr. A. C. Haddon, Christ's College, 

 has been appointed deputy curator. Mr. R. W. 

 Stanners, Gonville and Caius College, has been 

 appointed University lecturer in historical and 

 economic geography. Mr. T. G. Bedford, Sidney 

 Sussex College, and Dr. J. A, Crowther, St. John's 

 College, have been reappointed demonstrators in 

 experimental physics. 



Mr. F. J. W. 'Roughton, Trinity College, has been 

 elected to the Michael Foster research studentship in 

 physiology, and Mr. J. H. Richardson, Emmanuel 

 College, Wrenbury scholar in political economy. Dr. 

 R. L. M. Wallis, Downing College, has been avvarded 

 the Raymond Horton-Smith prize in medicine. 



Mr. T. F. T. Plucknett, Emmanuel College, has 

 been elected Choate memorial fellow at Harvard 

 College. 



Mr. H. H. Thomas, curator of the Herbarium, has 

 been re-elected fellow of Downing College. 



Two University lecturers in biochemistry are to be 

 appointed shortly. 



Prof. H. Lebesque, of the Faculty of Sciences, 

 University of Paris, has been elected professor of 

 mathematics at the College de France. 



Mr. H. p. Phii.pot, assistant professor at University 

 College, has been appointed to the professorship of 



NO. 2704, VOL. 107] 



civil and mechanical engineering at the Finsbury 

 Technical College; and Mr. A. J. Hale, chief assistant 

 in the department of applied chemistry, to the pro- 

 fessorship in that department. The entrance examina- 

 tion of the college will be held on Tuesday, Sep- 

 tember 20 



Loughborough College, Leicestershire, has issued 

 a calendar for the academic year 1921-22, in which 

 full accounts of the intellectual and social activities 

 of the college will be found. Work is distributed over 

 a number of faculties, of which the most prominent 

 appear to be those concerned with engineering and 

 pure and applied science. Full details of the courses 

 followed are given, together with a number of full- 

 page reproductions of photographs of the workshops 

 and laboratories. The engineering departments were 

 opened in iqiS, and they are designed to give 

 specialised training to boys above sixteen vears of age. 

 The course covers five years, during which time the 

 student passes through every department found in an 

 engineering works. On the social side there are, 

 among other societies, engineering, wireless, and 

 chemical and metallurgical societies, while in June 

 last the council of the junior Institution of Engineers 

 sanctioned the formation of a sub-section, with head- 

 quarters at the college. These societies are doing 

 much to bring the student into contact with 

 industrial methods, and should serve as the much- 

 desired link between the technical school and the 

 works. 



The " Handbook of Lectures and Classes for 

 Teachers for the Session 1921-22," which has been 

 issued by the London County Council, contains a 

 number of features likely to interest readers of 

 Nature. The teaching of mathematics in elementary 

 and continuation schoo.s forms the subjects of courses 

 in the section on mathematics ; geography in secondary 

 schools and as a pivotal subject in education are the 

 themes of two courses in the section on geography. 

 Natural science is well represented by a number of 

 courses and lectures : Prof. A. Wolf is giving five 

 lectures on "Pioneers of Science"; Sir William H. 

 Bragg, six lectures on crystal structure ; Prof. C. 

 Spearman and the Rev. F. Aveling, ten lectures on the 

 mentality of individual children; Dr. W. H. R. Rivers, 

 five lectures on the psychology of dreams ; Mr. C. 

 Burt, ten lectures on intelligence tests; Mr. P. R. 

 Coursey, five lectures on war developments in wire- 

 less telegraphy and telephony ; and Dr. C. A. Keane, ten 

 lectures on science in elementary schools. There will 

 also be two courses of lectures on laboratory arts. 

 The special science lectures are as follows : " Modern 

 Astronomical Theories," by Prof. H. H. Turner, on 

 October 15; "The Wonders and Problems of Food," 

 by Prof. H. E. Armstrong, on November 12 ; " Fal- 

 lacies," by Prof. Karl Pearson, on November 26; 

 "Geology as a Basis for Geography," by Prof. W. W. 

 Watts, on December 10; "Yeast, what it is and 

 what it does," by Mr. A. Chaston-Chapman, on 

 January 21; "Aluminium and its Alloys," by Dr. W. 

 Rosenhain, on March 16; "The Relation between 

 Pure and Applied Chemistry," by Dr. M. O. Forster, 

 on February 4; "The Migration of Birds," by Prof. 

 J. A. Thomson, on February 18; and "Vitamins," 

 by Prof. A. Harden, on March 4. All lectures are 

 open to teachers employed within the county of 

 London ; those outside the administrative county will 

 be admitted where accommodation permits. The 

 Council has also arranged for the issue to teachers 

 of science in London schools of tickets of admission 

 to the meetings of certain scientific- societies. Com- 

 munications should be addressed to the Education 

 Officer, New County Hall, S.E.i. 



