November 22, 1900] 



NATURE 



97 



the other hand, a ver>' marked increase in numbers. Although 

 the bison in the Yellowstone are protected so far as possible 

 from poachers, many of them fall victims to beasts of prey, and 

 their rate of increase seems to be slow. Those in British terri- 

 tory are much harried by Indians, and are consequently 

 decreasing daily in number. 



It is accordingly to the domesticated and semi-domesticated 

 herds that we have to look for the maintenance of the species. 

 And with the example of the Lithuanian herd of European 

 bison before us, coupled with the larger size of several of the 

 American herds, and the facilities that exist for the introduction 

 of fresh blood to counteract the ill-effects of inbreeding, there 

 would seem, at first sight, to be a great probability that the 

 American bison may survive for many generations. 



It has, however, been brought to the notice of the writer of 

 the article under consideration that, in the case of animals living 

 under conditions other than those which properly belong to 

 them, there is a great tendency for the proportion of males 

 among the offspring to increase in an alarming degree at the 

 expense of the females. And to such an extent does thts 

 abnormality prevail in some of the herds, that in Bronx Park, 

 New York, every calf is put down as a bull as a matter of 

 course. If this were universal, the fate of the species would 

 evidently be soon sealed ; but fortunately it is not so, and as 

 the Allard herd wanders almost at will under what are prac- 

 tically the natural conditions of the species, there still appears 

 (in spite of certain disabilities) hope that the final extinction of 

 Bos bison is a remote contingency. R. L. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxford. — Mr. A. J. Evans, Keeper of the Ashmolean 

 Museum, will give three public lectures on "The Palace of 

 Knossos : its Art Treasures and Clay Archives," explanatory of 

 his recent work in Crete ; the dates announced are November 22, 

 November 29, December 6. 



The trustees of the Craven Fellowships have made a grant of 

 200/. to assist Messrs. Grenfell and Hunt in their Egyptian 

 researches. 



On Thursday, November 15, the new degree of Doctor of 

 Letters was conferred upon Mr. B. P. Grenfell, Mr. A. S. 

 Hunt, and Mr. J. Rhys, Principal of Jesus College, and the 

 degree of Doctor of Science upon Prof. A. E. H. Love and 

 Mr. H. W. Lloyd Tanner. 



Prof. Miers has been appointed a delegate for the inspection 

 and examination of schools. 



The report of the Delegacy for the Training of Teachers states 

 that there were twenty-six students on the books of the College 

 at the end of the academical year. Mr. Roscoe, having been 

 appointed Lecturer on Education in the University of Birming- 

 ham, has been succeeded by Mr. A. W. Priestley as Master of 

 Method at the Day Training College. 



Cambridge. — The syndicate appointed to superintend the 

 erection of the Hopkinson wing of the engineering laboratory 

 report that the work has been successfully caried out at a cost of 

 5516/. Of this, Mrs. Hopkinson and her family contributed 

 5000/. Additional donations, amounting to 1700/., have been 

 received for the furnishing and equipment of the building, which 

 have thus been carried out without expense to the University. 

 The classes, however, are still growing rapidly, and the accom- 

 modation is already insufficient. A further extension will soon 

 have to be undertaken, and new workshops are much needed. 



The Medical School Syndica,te propose that the existing 

 Museum of Surgery and Pathology, which has become so infected 

 with dry-rot that it endangers the contiguous structures, shall be 

 demolished, and that the new Humphry Museum shall be 

 erected on its site at a cost of some 8000/. Over 1000/. has 

 been specially contributed for this memorial to the late Sir 

 George Humphry, and it is hoped that if the work is actually 

 begun other donations to the building fund may be received. 



The British Medical Journal states that under the will of 

 the late Dr. D. J. Leech, professor of materia medica and thera- 

 peutics in the Owens College, Manchester, that college will 

 eventually benefit to the extent of 10,000/., which Dr. Leech 

 bequeathed for the purpose of endowing a chair of materia 

 medica and therapeutics. The bequest will take effect upon the 

 demise of Mrs. Leech. 



Lord Rosebery dealt with many Imperial questions in his 

 Rectorial address at Glasgow University on Friday last, but 

 none were of more importance than those concerned with the 

 factors of industrial progress, and iheir education il relationships. 

 The following extracts from the Times report of his speech are 

 of particular interest to all who are engaged in the work of science 

 or scientific education : — The United States Consul at Chemnitz 

 has remarked that, " If an industry in Germany languishes, im- 

 mediately a commission inquires into the causes and recom- 

 mends remedial measures, among which usually is the advice to 

 establish technical or industrial schools, devoted to the branch 

 of business under consideration." In a word, they go to the 

 root, to the principle, to the source. This is thoroughness, this 

 is the scientific method applied to manufacture, and we see its 

 success. The Americans, I gather, have hitherto applied them- 

 selves rather less to the principles than the applications of science. 

 I do not pretend to say which are right. The Germans are 

 alarmed at the development of American commerce, and we are 

 alarmed at both. At any rate, both in Germany and the United 

 States you see an expenditure and a systematic devotion to 

 commercial, and technical, and scientific training. I know that 

 much is done, too, in Great Britain. But I doubt if even that 

 is carried out in the same methodical way ; nor is there any- 

 thing like the same lavish, though well-considered, expenditure. 

 It always seems to me as if in Germany nothing, and in Britain 

 everything, is left to chance. 



For the practical purposes of the present day, said Lord Rose- 

 bery at Glasgow, a University which starts in the twentieth cen- 

 tury has a great superiority over a University founded in the- 

 fifteenth, more especially when it is launched with keen intelli- 

 gence of direction and ample funds, as is the new University of 

 Birmingham. These practical Universities are the Universities 

 of the future ; for the average man, who has to work for his 

 livelihood, cannot superadd the learning of the dead to the 

 educational requirements of his life and his profession. There 

 will always be Universities, or, at any rate, colleges, for the 

 scholar, the teacher, and the divine ; but year by year the ancient 

 Universities will have to adapt themselves more and more to 

 modern exigencies. There was a time, long years ago, when 

 the spheres of action and of learning were separate and distinct, 

 when laymen dealt hard blows and left letters to the priesthood. 

 That was to some extent the case when our oldest Universities 

 were founded. But the separation daily narrows, if it has not 

 already disappeared. It has been said that the true University 

 of our days is a collection of books. What if a future philosopher 

 shall say that the best University is a workshop ? And yet the 

 latter definition bids fair to be the sounder of the two. The 

 training of our schools and colleges must daily become more 

 and more the training for action, for practical purpose. Are- 

 there not thousands of lads today plodding away, or sup- 

 posed to be plodding away, at the ancient classics who 

 will never make anything of those classics, and who, at 

 the first possible moment, will cast them into space, niever 

 to reopen them ? Think of the wasted time that that im- 

 plies ; not all wasted, perhaps, for something may have been 

 gained in power of application, but entirely wasted so far as. 

 available knowledge is concerned. And if you consider, as you 

 will have to consider in the stress of competition, that the time 

 and energy of her citizens is part of the capital of the common- 

 wealth, all those wasted years represent a dead loss to the 

 Empire. If, then, these recent events and the present conditions 

 of the world induce thinkers and leaders in this country to test 

 our strength and methods for the great struggle before us, they 

 must reckon the training of man. On that, under Providence, 

 depends the future, and the immediate future, of the race ; and 

 what is Empire but the predom inance of race ? 



NO. I 62 I, VOL. 63] 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Linnean Society, November i. — Prof. S. H. Vines, F.R.S., 

 President, in the chair. — Mr. J. E. Harting exhibited and made 

 remarks upon the following birds which had been recently for- 

 warded to him for examination :— (l) A hybrid between black- 

 cock and red grouse, shot at Brechin, N.B. , September 14. 

 (2) A glossy ibis, killed at Saltash, Devon, October 4. (3) A 

 little owl, obtained at Dunmow, Essex, October 22. Mr. F. D. 

 Godman concurred in identifying the game-bird as a hybrid 



