November 22, 1917] 



NATURE 



227 



investigation of the results followinj^^ schemes of 

 infant welfare if their true effects are to be deter- 

 mined. With regard to the latter, the danger of 

 "overdoing it " is emphasised. For instance, in 

 Poplar, in spite of an extensive infant welfare 

 scheme in being, the infantile death-rate has risen. 

 It is suggested that this disappointing result may 

 be traceable to the people being harassed by a 

 multitude of health visitors, which upsets them 

 and makes them disinclined to adopt the measures 

 urged upon them. 



The third and final report is a statistical study 

 by Dr. Brownlee of some of the data relating to 

 infantile mortality. It is shown that the growth 

 ■of the child is a continuous process from a period 

 at least six months prior to birth up to the age of 

 about four years, a process which is not inter- 

 rupted either by the act of birth or by the act of 

 weaning. 



Certain disease conditions have also been in- 

 vestigated. Convulsions diminish in a perfectly 

 •definite manner from the age of two months to 

 that of four years. In the group of premature 

 births and wasting diseases some considerable sav- 

 ing of infantile life seems to be possible. The 

 group of diarrhoeal diseases is found to be a homo- 

 geneous statistical group, though it undoubtedly 

 includes several distinct specific infections, from 

 which it is inferred that the reason for the fre- 

 quency of these diseases at the ages at which 

 they occur must be sought for in the development 

 of the child rather than in the type of parasite. 

 Scarlet fever, measles, bronchitis, and pneumonia 



Ibave also been investigated. 

 From the foregoing brief summary it will be 

 seen that this report contains matter of much 

 , importance, and its appearance at this time is 

 • most opportune. R. T. H. 



BARON DAIROKU KIKUCHI. 



BAROX KIKUCHI, whose death took place on 

 August 19, was one of the most conspic- 

 uous among the band of men who modernised 

 •education in Japan. He was born in Yedo (now 

 'I'okyo) on March 17, 1855, ^^^^ came of a family 

 of noted scholars. Both his father and grand- 

 father were specially interested in Western learn- 

 ing, and Kikuchi himself early received a strong 

 bias in the direction of scientific study. He was 

 the youngest member of a small group of 

 promising students whom the old Shogunate 

 (iovernment sent to Europe in 1866. Owing to 

 the revolutionary change of government which 

 occurred in Japan in 1868, Kikuchi was recalled 

 home ; but two years later he was again ordered 

 abroad, this time to England. After some years 

 sy)ent at school he entered the London University 

 . illege in 1873, but ere long passed on to Cam- 

 iflge, where he graduated as nineteenth wran- 

 :;ar in 1877. 



Returning home, he became professor of mathe- 

 matics in the college where he had been himself a 

 young pupil, which had developed gradually to 

 ihe standard of a university. Originally known as 



ithe Kaisei-gakko, this school grew into what was 

 NO. 2508, VOL. 100] 



afterwards known as the Tokyo University, and 

 this in due course amalgamated with the Kobu- 

 daigakko, or College of Engineering, and became 

 the highly organised Imperial University of Japan. 



It was in the Tokyo University that Principal 

 Sir J. A. Ewing, then professor of engineering 

 and physics, carried out his well-known experi- 

 ments on magnetic hysteresis ; and associated with 

 Kikuchi in these and later days were Edward 

 Divers, professor of chemistry, C. D. West, pro- 

 fessor of mechanical engineering, John Milne, the 

 famous seismologist, as well as others, including 

 the writer of this notice. Our intercourse with 

 Kikuchi was marked with cordiality and mutual 

 appreciation from the first, in great measure due, 

 no doubt, to his experience as a schoolboy and ' 

 student in London and Cambridge. He greatly, 

 admired the English genius for self-imposed 

 discipline, and used to say that if he had not been 

 a Japanese he would have desired above every- 

 thing to be an Englishman. 



From 1 88 1 Kikuchi added to his professorial 

 duties the office of the Dean of the College of 

 Science, a highly responsible post at that time of 

 strenuous educational development. As one of the 

 members of the House of Peers under the new 

 Constitution he was of great service in advancing 

 various Bills of educational and economic impor- 

 tance, and rapidly established for himself a high 

 reputation as a man of sagacity and administra- 

 tive power. The mere enumeration of the public 

 offices which he filled is a tribute to the confi- 

 dence his fellow-countrymen reposed in him. In 

 succession he held the posts of Vice-Minister of 

 Education (1897-98), President of the Imperial 

 University, Tokyo (1898— 1901), and Minister of 

 Education (1901-3). 



As one of the representatives of the Imperial 

 Academy of Japan, he attended the meeting of the 

 International Association of Academies at X'ienna 

 in 1907, and thereafter spent a considerable time 

 in this country. His course of lectures on Japanese 

 education, delivered in that year under the auspices 

 of the University of London, were published in 

 English in 1909. This book contains the first 

 systematic account of the history of education in 

 Japan given to the world at large, and will ever 

 remain a work of great value to the educational 

 historian. A remarkably succinct sketch of the 

 fundamental characteristics of the old Japanese 

 civilisation, and of the way in which it proved 

 itself equal to the absorption of Western learning, 

 was given in an address delivered before the 

 Royal vSociety of Edinburgh in June, 1907, and 

 published in the Proceedings (vol. xxvii.). 



After this stay in Europe, where Kikuchi 

 renewed acquaintance with many former friends 

 and made many new ones, he returned to Japan to 

 take up again responsible educational duties. L^p 

 to the day of his last illness he was in the midst 

 of. all movements which were making for effi-. 

 ciency in education. In March of this year, for 

 example, he was apcointed director of the newly 

 established National Physico-Chemical Institute. 



Called comparatively early in life to take a great 



