April i8, 1901] 



NATURE 



60 



Mr. J. W. PuLSFORD, late scholar of Sidney Sussex College, 

 Cambridge, and second master of thie Dorchester Grammar 

 School, has been appointed a junior mathematical teacher in 

 the Merchant Venturers' Technical College, Bristol. 



Sir W. II. Preece, K.C.B., F.R.S., will distribute the 

 prizes and certificates to the students of the South-Western 

 Polytechnic, Chelsea, on Saturday. The laboratories will be 

 open for the exhibition of apparatus and experiment, and short 

 lectures will be given in the course of the evening. 



The movement in favour of the establishment of a Liverpool 

 University has received an impulse by the offer of Mr. A. L. 

 Jones to contribute 5000/. towards that purpose. With the 

 University College as a centre of activity, and the interest taken 

 in educational matters in Liverpool, the movement ought soon 

 to assume a practical form. At a special meeting of the 

 council of University College, held on Tuesday, the following 

 resolutions were adopted :—(i) That, while gratefully acknow-* 

 ledging the advantages which have accrued to University 

 College, Liverpool, by its association with Victoria University, 

 this council is of opinion that a University should be established 

 in the city of Liverpool ; that this council will welcome a scheme 

 with this object upon an adequate basis ; and that a committee 

 be appointed to consider and report upon the whole question, 

 with power to make inquiries and to communicate with other 

 bodies. (2) That the committee consist of all the members .of 

 council, with power to associate with them any other persons 

 whom they may think fit. 



Sir William Hart Dyke presided at the annual meeting 

 of the Association of Technical Institutions on Tuesday, and 

 delivered an address, in the course of which he dealt with the 

 necessity of a coordinated educational system, educational and 

 industrial progress in America, the educational crisis produced 

 by the decision as to the limitation of the powers of School 

 Boards as regards higher grade and evening continuation schools, 

 and the constitution of local authorities to be responsible for 

 educational provision. Several resolutions were passed, among 

 them being one approving the main provisions of the Secondary 

 Education Bill, 1900, and hoping that the new Education Bill 

 promised by the Government will prevent unnecessary and 

 wasteful overlapping and competition between the educational 

 work of School Boards and County Councils. 



At a meeting of Convocation of the University of London, 

 held on Friday last, a resolution was carried to the effect : — 

 " That the life composition fees paid by the graduates in lieu of 

 annual subscriptions to Convocation, being the capital of the 

 University, ought not to be retained by the Treasury ; and that 

 the Senate of the University be hereby requested to represent 

 to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the University is the 

 equitable owner of the same." In proposing the resolution Prof. 

 S. P. Thompson compared the London University with other 

 Universities as regards the support given to it. He pointed 

 out that the University of Berlin has 5140 students and that the 

 State subvention is more than 105,000/. per annum, making 

 about 21/. per student. The University of Rostock, with 514 

 students, has a State subvention of 17,000/., or about 33/. per 

 student, and the annual State subvention at Strassburg amounts 

 to 44/. per student. The University of Edinburgh, with 2780 

 students, has a Parliamentary grant of 25,870/., or about 9/. per 

 student ; and the University of St. Andrews, with 236 students, 

 enjoys a grant of 10,800/., or 45/. per student per annum. * 



To all who are interested in the subject of education in 

 country districts we recommend for serious consideration a small 

 pamphlet which we have received from the Board of Education 

 and which bears the title "Specimen Courses of Object Lessons 

 on Common Things connected with Rural Life and Industries 

 for all Classes in Rural Schools." It has long been recognised 

 by educational authorities that there should be a differentiation 

 between urban and rural education, and two years ago Sir John 

 Gorst, in the course of a speech delivered at the Countess of 

 Warwick's school near Dunmow, dwelt upon this necessity with 

 his accustomed vigour of expression. Since that time the 

 Agricultural Education Committee have been working most 

 energetically to bring about this much-desired result, and the 

 manifesto of the Board of Education may in some degree be 

 looked upon as one of the practical issues of the voluntary 

 labours of the gentlemen composing that Committee. Of 

 course in all educational reforms in this country the usual 

 difficulties of vested interests, inelasticity of teachers, hostility 



NO. 1642, VOL. 63] 



of those who fail to see the importance of nature knowledge, 

 &c. , have to be faced and, if possible, overcome. The 

 schedules now issued should go a long way towards removing 

 these difficulties, and it is satisfactory to learn from the intro- 

 ductory statement that the schemes submitted are actual examples 

 of attempts now being made to adapt the teaching in rural schools 

 to the requirements of country life. One paragraph, pointing out 

 the connection of the new schemes with other studies, strikes us 

 as being an admirable answer to those objectors who declare 

 that the introduction of these rural subjects entails the subor- 

 dination or suppression of other necessary subjects. It is shown 

 most conclusively in this paragraph that no additional burden is 

 imposed upon the teachers or pupils, but simply a " change in the 

 contents of the lessons in the ordinary subjects." The Board 

 recognise that the desired change can only be brought about 

 gradually. It is not often that we find a Government Department 

 actually in advance of the times, but in the present case we cer- 

 tainly must credit the Board of Education with having made a 

 most important step in the right direction. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Zoological Society, April 2. — Dr. Albert Gunther, F.R.S., 

 vice-president, in the chair. ^ — Mr. G. P. Mudge read a paper 

 on the myology of the tongue of parrots, and added a tenta- 

 tive classification of this order of birds placed upon the struc- 

 ture of the tongue. This memoir was the outcome of an 

 examination of the congues of fifty- three parrots ranging over 

 the whole order, the Cyclopsittacidre excepted ; and the con- 

 clusion arrived at by the author was that the parrots, by the 

 structural characters of the tongue alone, might be arranged in 

 three families, viz. Loriidae, Nestoridse and Psittacidse. — A com- 

 munication was read from Prof. W. Blaxland Benham on the larynx 

 of a rorqual whale {Balaenoptera rostrata) and of a cachalot of 

 the genus Cogia. The paper was based upon an examination of 

 the larynxes of specimens of these cetaceans, which had been 

 washed up on the coast of Dunedin, New Zealand, and in it the 

 author showed how widely different this organ was in these 

 representatives of the Mystacoceti and the Odontoceti. — A com- 

 munication from Mr. F. F. Laidlaw contained an account of 

 the lizards collected during the "Skeat Expedition " to the 

 Malay Peninsula in 1 899 -1900. Twenty-seven species were 

 enumerated in the paper, and notes were given on their geogra- 

 phical distribution and habits, special attention being directed 

 to the curious habit of Tachydromus sexlineatus of running about 

 on the top of the long buffalo-grass. One new species was 

 described, under the name Lygosonia floweri. — Prof D'Arcy W. 

 Thompson, C.B., read a paper on the pterylosis of the giant 

 humming-bird, Patagona gigas. 



Entomological Society, April 3. — Mr. Charles G. Barrett, 

 vice-president, in the chair. — The Rev. A. E. Eaton sent for 

 exhibition, on behalf of Mr. F. M. Halford a ? sub-imago of a 

 species of Ephemeridae of the genus Ephemera, received from 

 Central Africa, without more precise indication of locality, this 

 being the first time this genus has been noticed from Africa. — Mr. 

 McLachlan remarked that Ephemera usually occurred in cold 

 alpine or temperate regions, and that the Central African 

 example probably inhabited the mountains at a considerable 

 altitude. — Dr. Chapman exhibited cases of Luffia ferchaultella 

 from Cannes, and a spider, which are found on the same rocks, 

 the interest of the specimens being in the fact that the spider 

 when at rest has almost precisely the same form and coloration 

 as the cases of the moth. — Mr. W. L. Distant communicated a 

 paper entitled "Enumeration of the Heteroptera (Rhynchota) 

 collected by Leonardo Fea in Burma and its Vicinity." 



Manchester. 

 Literary and Philosophical Society, April 2. — Prof. 

 Horace Lamb, F.R.S. , president, in the chair. — Mr. W. E. 

 Hoyle exhibited an old form of dial, bearing the name " Nathaniell 

 Jeynes " and the date "1678," which had on one side a small 

 circular rotating plate inscribed with the circumpolar constella- 

 tions. — Mr. C. E. Stromeyer mentioned that on several occa- 

 sions he had seen the sun's rays converging to a point directly 

 opposite to the sun. In one case, when the sun was very low 

 on the western horizon, some very marked rays, caused by a low 

 bank of clouds, converged to a point above the eastern horizon. 



