206 



MATURE 



[May i&, 19 iS 



immense ability and high character , have to pay 

 for their civilisation. " 



The unsympathetic critic, who does not dwell 

 with the people, as one must dwell with all sorts 

 and conditions of living creatures if one is to 

 understand them, does not discover that the peat 

 smoke is tolerated and even encouraged day and 

 night through all the winter in order that the straw 

 may be saturated to form a manure which keeps the 

 croft lands effective. The reasons for the so-called 

 "cattle-housing" are similarly interpretable in 

 terms of intelligible purpose. Not that the medical 

 member of the Local Government Board for Scot- 

 iarld is advocating the encouragement of "black 

 houses" and "cattle-housing," But he protests 

 that we shall do well to pay to even the jetsam of 

 the past. the compliment of understanding it, or 

 heaven help our future. 



The geographer will be pleased by the author's 



tude that the United Kingdom Trust sboufe$ 

 already have promised for Scotland, as well as. for 

 England, a national institute of maternal and child 

 welfare. 



THE 



DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNICAL 

 RESEARCH. ' " 



WITHIN the last year there has been ari im- 

 portant movement in Germany having foF 

 its object the better application of scientific re- 

 search to technical problems. It is well known 

 that the same question has received earnest con- 

 sideration in this country, and that a serious 

 attempt has been made to attack it by the ap- 

 pointment in 191 5 of the Committee of the Privy 

 Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. 

 The Committee consists, of course, of a number 

 of important political personages, mainly distin- 



FiG. a.— Hebrides. South Uist, showing smoke issuing by doorway. 



appreciation of the basal importance of the map ; 

 the biologist will enjoy the recognition of the 

 motor necessities and play necessities of the 

 ■young child, and by the masterly way in which, 

 amid an embarrassing multitude of details, the 

 reader is never allowed to lose sight of the big 

 underlying problem — the influence of nurture, 

 environmental, nutritional, and functional, on the 

 Ofganism, whether adult and reproductive, or in 

 process of early development. The author is 

 heither optimist nor pessimist; he believes things 

 can be bettered; he shows us what a multitude of 

 ■salutary provisions are at present in operation; 

 he indicates how development along the lines of 

 'education, research, and institutions may - wipe 

 a^ay a reproach 1^ our civilisation. Dr. Mac- 

 kenzie has done g-reat service to his" day arid 

 generation in making his report, arid he may take 

 it as a sort of eXpressiori of his country's grati- 

 NO. 2533, VOL. lOl] 



guished for their lack of knowledge of both 

 science and industry. It is, however, supple- 

 mented by a small Advisory Council, most of the 

 members of which are eminent men of science. 

 So far the Committee has done but little, though 

 this fact is largely due to the difficulty of getting 

 men to attend to anything other than the urgent 

 national war work to which all our energies are 

 being devoted for the moment. The Germans, on 

 the other hand, have sought to attain their object 

 by forming the " German Union of Technical 

 Scientific Societies," which is a combination of 

 some' thirteen associations interested in various 

 branches of technology. The object is stated to 

 be the establishment of k balance between science 

 and practide, seeing; that most technical, tasks 

 require the collaboration '[ of several '. distinct 

 branches of science. • 



One of the'firsf /ste|i!s of' this lynidn has been 



