December 6, 1900] 



NA rURE 



^ZZ 



The Great Indian Famine of 1899. 



When, in a sun-spot cycle, the solar temperature is 

 more than usually increased, the regularity of the above 

 effects is liable to be broken, as the advent of the — 

 pulse is retarded. 



This, as we have already pointed out, is precisely what 

 happened after the "abnormal + heat pulse of 1892, 

 following close upon the condition of solar mean tem- 

 perature. 



The widened line curves, instead of crossing, according 

 to the few precedents we have, in 1897 or 1898, have not 

 crossed yet — that is, the condition of ordinary solar 

 mean temperature has not even yet been reached. 



We have shown that, as a matter of fact, in a normal 

 cycle India is supplied from the southern ocean during 

 the minimum sun-spot period, and that this rain is due 

 to some pressure effect brought about in high southern 

 latitudes by the sun at - temperature. 



As the — temperature condition was not reached in 

 1899, as it would have been in a normal year, the rain 

 failed (Fig. 3). 



We may say then that the only abnormal famine re- 

 corded since 1836 occurred precisely at the time when 

 an abnormal effect of an unprecedented maximum of 

 solar temperature was revealed by the study of the 

 widened lines. 



TABLE 



Showinar the Occurrence of the -f and - Rainfall 

 Pulses in other parts of the World. 



1 For.compirison. 



THE BRADFORD MUNICIPAL TECHNICAL 

 COLLEGE. 

 pROF RUCKER- recently distributed the prizes at the 

 ■*■ Technical College at Bradford, which was taken over 

 by the municipality a year ago, and is now controlled by 

 a Committee of the City Council. The following is an 

 abstract of his address : — 



It would be trite to dwell at length on the changes 

 which have taken place in the educational standards 

 during the last quarter of a century. Then Mr Forster's 

 Education Bill had only been in operation for five years. 

 Now we have free elementary education, and a large sum 

 has been provided for technical education. Two new 

 Universities have been founded and a third, after fifty 

 years' examining, is at length about to teach. Educa- 

 tion is not now regarded as the task of a few dons and 



NO. 1623, VOL. 63] 



professors and schoolmasters. It is a matter which the 

 Cabinet discusses, together with the issues of peace and 

 war, and with the federation of daughter States into a 

 Commonwealth. Nay, and in the great spread of local 

 self-government, when Town Councils decide questions 

 which affect more people than constituted, in the be- 

 ginning of the century, many an independent German 

 State, education is not forgotten ; and here in Bradford 

 you have the whole authority and power of your great 

 municipality brought to bear to form a technical school 

 which will support the industries on which your 

 prosperity depends. 



And yet, gentlemen, in the midst of all this eager and 

 fruitful effort how difficult it is to decide what the ideal 

 system of education should be. For in any such system 

 two things must be considered, the welfare of the indi- 

 viduals taught and the welfare of the community of 

 which they are a part ; and at first sight these two do not 

 always seem to be identical. Each man, the State may 

 say, has a task to perform, which, if he performs it well, 

 is for the good of the community, and, provided he is a 

 good citizen, I care only about his special task. This 

 man may have to dispense justice. My only concern is 

 that he should be a just and learned judge. That man 

 is to be a manufacturer. If he manufactures well, that 

 is all the State need care for. But surely this view only 

 needs stating clearly to show that there must be a fallacy 

 somewhere. Like the old political economy, it assumes 

 that man lives by bread alone. At the best he cannot 

 always be working, and his own happiness — aye, and the 

 good of the State, too— may be affected by whether his 

 amusements are refined or low, upon whether they 

 elevate or debase him. From this point of view the best 

 educators would be insects, which, like ants or bees, 

 have developed special forms of workers, or soldiers, or 

 drones ; or even, as is, I believe, the habit of one species, 

 use an individual to store their food till it becomes a 

 mere bloated honey-bag. 



Others hold the opposing view. The object of edu- 

 cation, they say, is to educate— that is, to bring out the 

 latent capacities of the mind. Provided this end is 

 achieved, it matters little how this is done ; but, on the 

 whole, it is better that the subjects taught should be 

 selected rather because they illustrate general principles 

 than because they are likely to be immediately useful. 

 This ideal is to be condemned because it is impracticable 

 for all but the few. It never has been the system adopted 

 for the working man, and has been very imperfectly 

 adopted for the great bulk of the commercial and profes- 

 sional classes. In the stress and struggle of modern 

 life it is becoming more and more difficult to adopt it 

 for anybody, and common sense revolts against the idea 

 that the utility of the subject taught, or of the method 

 of teaching it, is of secondary importance. 



We come, then, to the conclusion that the truth lies 

 somewhere between these two extremes, and that the 

 best education is that which will prepare a man for his 

 walk in life, and will also, as far as may be, keep his 

 mind open to interests and ideas other than those upon 

 which his success as a bread-winner directly depends. 



I will not attempt, in the short time at my disposal, to 

 sketch out a general system of education in which these 

 conditions would be fulfilled, and, if I did, I should 

 throughout be conscious that I was only throwing an 

 apple of discord among educational experts. 



But, taking scientific and technical education as a 

 whole, I am clear that for the better students, at all 

 event'^, the study of science should be relieved and aided 

 by the study of modern languages. 



Nowadays everything is becoming more cosmopolitan. 

 Science is becoming more international. Only this sum- 

 mer I attended the first meeting of a new association of 

 all the great scientific academies of the world. Again, 

 with the new century will begin the publication of an 



