98 



NATURE 



{Dec. 6, 1877 



tion to be given, and holds that " What is needed is to 

 give a man the intelligence, the knowledge of general 

 principles, combined with the habits of correct observation 

 and quick perception, which will enable him afterwards to 

 master the technicalities of his art, instead of becoming a 

 slave to them. No objection can be taken to the advice 

 that, for this purpose, a lad, after learning to read, write, 

 and cipher, should acquire some facility in drawing, and 

 should be familiarised with the elements of physical 

 science. The importance of the latter study for this 

 particular purpose is, indeed, unquestionable, and even 

 paramount, for a handicraftsman is dealing exclusively 

 with physical objects in his work, and his skill in applying 

 the processes of his craft will vary in great measure with 

 his knowledge of the scientific principles on which they 

 depend." 



But we fancy that the Times writer does not look 

 upon this scientific part of education quite as the lecturer 

 does, for he proceeds to add : "There can be little doubt, 

 for instance, that many of the perils of mining might be 

 averted if the miners were alive to the scientific reasons 

 of the precautions they are urged to adopt. Many an 

 improvement, probably, which now escapes the eye of a 

 man who adheres slavishly to the rules of his craft would 

 occur to him if he were applying them with conscious 

 intelligence." 



The Times, however, considers that the school-time is 

 too short for the languages, and curiously enough drives 

 its point home by saying a harder thing about the Greek 

 and Latin of our public schools than Prof. Huxley has 

 ever done ; while, on the other hand, the Daily News 

 points out that Prof. Huxley this time may have raised a 

 hornet's nest about his ears by the unduly reasonable 

 tone of his demands. 



The Daily Neivs then adds : — " A man of science who 

 does not demand that from the earliest age an hour a day 

 shall be devoted to each of the ologies may be regarded 

 as a traitor to his cause." For our part we know of no 

 man of science who has ever made such a demand ; and 

 a careful examination of what men of science have said 

 on this point for the last ten years will show that these 

 extreme views to which reference is here made are not 

 those of men of science at all. 



It will be well also if the strong language used 

 in connection with the multiple examinations of the 

 present day brings that question well before the bar of 

 public opinion. The Times is " sorry to see another flout 

 thus inflicted, in passing, on that system of examinations 

 which, like most good institutions, may do harm to the 

 few, but is indispensable as a motive for work to the great 

 majority." Prof. Huxley has expressed the views of most 

 of the leading teachers in this country with regard to the 

 effect of these examinations upon the students, and he 

 might have referred to their reflex action on the examiner. 

 Go into a company of scientific men, and observe the 

 most dogmatic, the most unfruitful, and the least modest 

 among them, you will find that this man is, as we may say, 

 an examiner by profession. Speak to him of research or 

 other kindred topics, he will smile at you — his time is far 

 too precious to be wasted in discussing such trivialities ; 

 like his examinees, he finds they do not pay. The example 

 set by Germany in this respect, both as regards students 

 and professors, cannot be too often referred to, and there is 



•IT • 



little doubt that the love of science for its own sake which 

 has made Germany what she now is intellectually, has 

 sprung to a large extent from the fact that each young 

 student sees those around him spurred from within and 

 not from without. Noblesse oblige. 



In point of fact so far as our future scientific progress 

 is concerned the examination question is as important as 

 that connected with the kind of education to be subsidised 

 by the city guilds, and it is important, seeing that our 

 legislators will, in the coming time, have to give their 

 opinion on these subjects as well as on beer, vivisection, 

 and contagious diseases, that in Prof. Huxley's language 

 "by the process called distillatioperasceiisum — distillation 

 upwards — there should in time be no member of Parliament 

 who does not know as much of science as a scholar in one 

 of our elementary schools." 



NORTH AMERICAN STARFISHES 



Memoirs of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at 



Harvard College. Vol. v. No. i. North American 



Starfishes. By Alexander Agassiz. With Twenty 



Plates. (Cambridge, U.S., 1877.) 

 '"T^HIS memoir consists of two parts. The first con- 

 J- tains a history of the Embryology of the Starfish, 

 which is substantially the same as that pubhshed in 1864 

 as Part I., Vol. v., of Prof. Agassiz's " Natural History of 

 the United States." The author has, however, added notes 

 on the points where additions have been made by subse- 

 quent investigations. The second part treats of the solid 

 parts of some North American starfishes. 



The plates accompanying the second part were intended 

 to form part of one of Prof. L. Agassiz's volumes of " Con- 

 tributions to the Natural History of the United States," 

 and have been drawn for more than twelve years. The 

 late Prof. Agassiz intended to add them as illustrating 

 the anatomy of several of the more common American 

 species. 



Under these circumstances the memoir is wanting in 

 the completeness that distinguishes some of the other 

 Memoirs of this series, such as that " On the Ophiuridae," 

 by Lyman, and that " On the Echini," by Alexander 

 Agassiz ; but though the subject of the Starfishes as thus 

 presented is incomplete, it is beyond a doubt that we 

 have here a work of great value that will serve not only as 

 illustrating a number of American species, and showing 

 the systematic value of characters often almost com- 

 pletely overlooked, but as determining the homology of 

 several genera not previously figured, and of which the 

 details of the solid parts are fully given. 



The arrangement of the star-fishes into families adopted 

 does not materially differ from that given by Perrier in 

 his revision of the group. No general list, much less a 

 synonymic catalogue, as in the case of Echini, is given ; 

 and this because the number of species in the hands of 

 Prof. Perrier, from the Florida dredgings, as well as 

 those found by the Challenger expedition, have added a 

 number of remarkable forms not yet wholly determined 

 to the American starfish fauna. ,-3: '.-: iu: «'•: •-re -. . 



The author reminds us that the transformations pleculiar 

 to the Echinoderms constitute neither a metamorphosis 

 nor a case of alternate generation. The egg becomes the 

 embryo laxva. Nothing essential is lost during the 



