February 28, 1901] 



NA TURE 



431 



are studied by them from the original protocols, furnished 

 with a suitable explanatory text. Thus the fundamental ele- 

 mentary information is gained from the original sources before 

 the lectures. The students are questioned concerning these 

 fundamental experiments. The questions are arranged in the 

 sequence required for a systematic presentation of the subject. 

 Wherever necessary, the lecturer adds from his own stores to the 

 information already possessed by the student. The class is 

 encouragedto question the lecturer concerning matters not quite 

 clear. At the close of the exercise the lecturer sums up briefly. 

 The end in view is the development of the mind rather than the 

 imparting of information. For example, the fact that the pres- 

 sure of the saliva in the ducts of the submaxillary gland during 

 secretion is higher than that of the blood in the carotid artery is 

 not presented as a fact to be memorised, but is discussed with 

 reference to its bearing on secretion by filtration ; the student 

 has learned the fact itself from the original source before coming 

 to the lecture. Some of the lectures on special subjects, suc'h as 

 ihe eye, are given by dibtinguislied specialists in practical 

 medicine. Each instructor gives as an elective one or more 

 lectures describing, with demonstrations, his own investigations ; 

 the investigator discussing his own experiments is a powerful 

 intellectual stimulus ; too little account has been taken of this 

 educational force. 



The student should be provided with what may be called a 

 laboratory text -book. This text-book consists of a series of ex- 

 periments and observations, taken from the original sources, and 

 arranged in the sequence suited to develop the subject. Very 

 often the historical sequence serves this purpose best. The 

 description of the experiment follows the original so far as 

 practicable. The experiments are provided with a suitable com- 

 mentary text. The student is made to feel at every step that 

 physiology is an experimental science, that the only material 

 proper for discussion consists of observations and experiments 

 free from error, and that safety demands constant reference to 

 the original source. The laboratory text-book is supplemented 

 by the student's laboratory note-book, in which the student 

 preserves the graphic records of his experiments and the notes of 

 his observations. 



Little need be said concerning the instruction intermediate 

 between the primary course and research. In the intermediate 

 course the experiments chosen for the individual student vary 

 with his goal, and are arranged in the order that seems best 

 adapted to train the mind for research in the direction desired. 



The methods of primary and advanced instruction here pre- 

 sented are obviously the methods of the investigator. They can 

 be carried out effectively only by those whose chief purpose is 

 the advancement of human welfare by discovery. In many 

 schools, instructors are still selected mainly because they can 

 talk agreeably of the work of others ; in some, the instructor 

 must have made one experimental study in the subject which he 

 teaches ; in a very few of the large schools, the higher positions 

 are occasionally bestowed on men to whom research is more 

 than a memory, but these positions almost invariably are bur- 

 dened with a mass of petty administrative detail. The univer- 

 sity devotes these men to researches which the university prevents 

 them from making. Thereby its best minds are set to its lowest 

 work. A change is necessary here. No man who has not 

 made at least one experimental investigation should be appointed 

 assistant in a department of physiology, no man who has not 

 shown marked capacity for original work should be made in- 

 structor, and the professor's chair should be filled only by those 

 in whom the ardour of discovery is not likely to be cooled by 

 the advancing years. At least half the day should be set aside 

 for research, and the hours thus reserved for the highest studies 

 should be guarded against every encroachment. The best 

 elementary instruction can be given only in the atmosphere of 

 research. Discovery fires the imagination of youth, consoles the 

 aged, and lifts the mind from mediocrity to greatness. 



W. T. Porter. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxford. — The following is the text of the speech (composed 

 by Mr. A. C. Clark of Queen's College) delivered by Prof Love 

 in presenting Principal Lodge for the degree of D.Sc. honoris 

 causa on February 12 : — 



Adest Oliverus Josephus Lodge, Naturse rerum indagator acerri- 

 mus. Qui, ut vitam eius brevissime percurram, iam quinquaginta 



NO. 1635, VOL. 63] 



abhinc annos natus in Collegio Universitatis Londinensis prime 

 institutus, in Universitate Londinensi gradum Doctoris Scientise 

 adeptus est : mox in Collegio Universitatis de Liverpool Pro- 

 fessor Physicae creatus summa laude viginti annos floruit : anno 

 denique proximo Universitatis novae de Birmingham primus 

 Prseses factus est. Magna iamdudum fama inclaruit hie vir, 

 quod in rebus physicis experimentorum longum ordinem peri- 

 tissime commentus est et felicissime confecit : quo in genere 

 ssepe numero ei contigit ut re acu tacta difificillimam aliquam 

 quaestionem, in qua haeserant doctissimi Physicae auctores, 

 felicissime explicaret. Primo quidem quse et qualis sit vis ilia 

 Naturae moderatrix, quam ivtpyeiav vocant, quibus mutationibus 

 utatur, quserebat, neque laborum laude debita diu caruit a Regali 

 Socictate iam tredecim abhinc annos Sodalis electus. Iam turn 

 vestigia Fitzgeraldiana secutus radiorum electricorum naturae 

 studere inceperat. Docuerat enim Maxwell, huius rei peritissi- 

 mus, vim electricam oscillationibusquibusdam per inane spatium 

 transferri posse, quo duce usi apud Germanos Hertzius, apud 

 nostros Lodge, harum oscillationum signa et indicia certa 

 deprehendere conabantur. Hertzium quidem ad metam primum 

 pervenisse non nego, ad quam tamen Lodge eandem viam 

 ingressus certo cursu ferebatur : illud vero affirmaverim veritate 

 ab Hertzio patefacta hunc meliorem viam quaerentibus mon- 

 stravisse et novae doctrinae prsedicatorem insignissimum exstitisse. 

 Neque civium utilitatibus non inserviebant eius labores, cum in 

 nuntiis arte telegraphica sine filo metallico mittendis, tum in 

 fulminibus avertendis et in postes aeneos, tectorum nostrorum 

 tutamina, sine fraude derivandis. His denique diebus magnam 

 rem felicissime aggressus est cum quaereret de terrae cursu per 

 medium illud aetherium, quo lux et vis omnis electrica et 

 magnetica pervehitur, et doceret hoc medium, quod vocant, 

 penitus stagnare et materiae crassioris motibus omnino carere. 

 Multum denique profecit in natura radiorum illorum explicanda 

 quos Lenardus, Rontgen, Zeeman, viri acutissimi, primi de- 

 texerunt. Insignem eius operam in his variis generibus agnovit 

 Universitas Sancli Andreaa, quae gradu Legum Doctoris, et 

 Regalis Societas quae numismate aureo Rumfordiano eum iure 

 ornavit. 



Neque id silendum arbitror quod huic viro intima Naturae 

 penetralia reserare nequaquam satis erat, sed et in tironibus 

 instituendis et in rebus gubernandis pari industria et felicitate 

 eminuit : quo in genere haud parvam partem laudis suae debet 

 Universitas de Liverpool, de qua optime meritus est. Huius 

 viri ingenio multiplici latior profecto campus iam datur, cum 

 Universitatis novae de Birmingham Preefectus sit. 



The Junior Scientific Club held their 221st meeting on 

 Friday, February 15. Mr. W. B. Croft, M.D., of Pembroke, 

 read a paper on " The management of light waves," which was 

 followed by a paper by Mr. A. C. Inman, of Wadham, entitled 

 " Rene Descartes, and his physiology." 



Mr. R. E. Baynes, Lee's Reader in Physics, has been appointed 

 a delegate of the University Museum, in place of Sir John 

 Conroy, F.R.S., deceased. 



The Provost of Oriel (D. B. Munro) and the President of 

 Trinity (H. F. Pelham) have been appointed representatives at 

 the ninth Jubilee of the University of Glasgow. 



Cambridge. — Mr. W. D. Niven, F R.S., has been appointed 

 an elector to the Cavendish professorship of experimental 

 physics. 



The American Naturalist for January gives a list of gifts and 

 bequests made to various educational institutes in the United 

 States for eleven months of the year 1900, ending November 30 ; 

 they amount to over sixteen million dollars. The largest amount 

 is a gift, not to exceed three million dollars, from Mr. Andrew 

 Carnegie, for the enlargement of the Carnegie Institute, Pitts- 

 burg, Pennsylvania. The number of gifts or bequests recorded 

 is about eighty. 



The report of the Technical Education Committee of the 

 Derbyshire County Council shows that continued progress is 

 being made in the provision of adequate laboratory and work- 

 shop accommodation in important centres of the county. In 

 the department of agriculture, the headquarters of the agri- 

 cultural teaching have been transferred from Nottingham to the 

 farm centre at Kingston, where additional buildings have been 

 constructed to enable practical science work to be carried on. 



The Senate of the Royal University of Ireland has passed the 

 following resolution : — " That in the; opinion of the Senate the 



