February 7, 1918J 



NATURE 



45: 



As we have now .t rr;ill\ ik mot ratic President of the 

 Board of Education, wlu) li;i> .i genuine zeal for educa- 

 tion and a fervent desire iliai all who are capable of 

 benefiting from it shall have the means of enjoying its 

 advantages, we may hope that steps will be taken to 

 place our universities and technical institutions upon a 

 satisfactory financial footing. In an address delivered 

 in September last to the Associated Educational Socie- 

 ties of Manchester, on '' Educational Reform," recently 

 issued in pamphlet form, Mr. Fisher surveyed the 

 whole field of education, and directed attention to the 

 great increase in the number of universities 

 now existing in England and Wales, compris- 

 ing twelve, including the ancient universities of 

 Oxford and Cambridge. Mr. Fisher characterised these 

 as in the forefront of European learning, and said they 

 need not fear comparison with the most famous uni- 

 versities of the Continent in respect either of the 

 quality of their contributions to the advance of know- 

 ledge or of the adequacy and power of their teach- 

 ing. The ten more modern universities, which are 

 largel\- subsidised by the State, have not yet re- 

 ceived an equipment at all adequate to modern needs, 

 and are nowhere supported by so large a body of 

 students as they deserve. Attention was directed to a 

 comparison between Lancashire and Scotland, with a 

 similar population. In the former there are two uni- 

 versities, in the latter five, with, in the case of Scot- 

 land, a body of undergraduates five times as numerous 

 as that of the Universities of Manchester and Liverpool 

 combined. 



The place and function of the secondary school in its 

 relation to the university were also discussed bv Mr. 

 Fisher. While the number of such schools has greatly 

 increased, there being nearly looo in receipt of education 

 grants, there is in many areas very inadequate pro- 

 vision, to the great detriment of the children residing 

 therein. There are too many early leavers and too low 

 a percentage of pupils who reach matriculation 

 standard. Much needs to be done before the secondarv 

 schools can reach a proper level. Better salaries must 

 be offered to the teachers and an adequate scale of 

 pensions arranged. More encouragement must be 

 offered to induce a higher standard of work, and so 

 enable the universities to reach a higher plane of teach- 

 ing. More and better provision is needed in the way 

 of maintenance scholarships enabling capable, though 

 poor, children to travel along the broad highway un- 

 impeded from the elementary school to the university. 

 Whilst the work of the elementary school has much 

 improved of late it can never do its full work until the 

 leaving age is made compulsory up to fourteen at least, 

 and provision then made for a liberal, continued educa- 

 tion within working hours for those entering industry 

 up, to eighteen years of age. 



One point which has been overlooked in recent dis- 

 cussions is that of the need for improvement of the 

 scales of salaries of teachers in universities and tech- 

 nical institutions \^ competent instructors are to be 

 maintained. .V meeting of teachers engaged in the 

 technical institutes, junior technical and trades schools 

 of London and the neighbouring counties was held on 

 Saturday last to consider this question. Special em- 

 phasis was laid by several speakers on the fact that 

 men and women of attainments similar to those of 

 teachers in technical institutions can obtain much higher 

 salaries in industry or in secondary schools than are 

 paid in the technical institutions. A resolution declar- 

 ing that the present rates of s,il.irii< paul ti. lu.tli dav 

 and evening teachers in technical in-iiiuiimi- ik tuially 

 inadequate, and urging the education authorities to 

 take immediate steps to establish satisfactorv scales of 

 salaries for all teachers, was carried unanimouslv. 

 A further resolution requesting the rinvernmcn' 

 cate special grants, similar to those gi\on in 

 NO. 2519, VOL. 100] 



' of secondary and elem<niai\ sdiools, for impnAin^ 



the salaries of teachers in tcihnical institution^ wa- 



also adopted. It was agreed that the London Branch 



of the Association of Teachers in Technical Institu- 



: tions, by whom the meeting was organised, should re- 



! quest the County Councils of London and the Home 



I Counties to receive deputations for the purpose of 



i placing the views of the meeting before them. 



i MAGNETIC SURVEY OF NEW ZEALAND.' 



j T N the observational work recorded in the pub- 

 '*■ lication referred to bcluw Dr. Fair had much assist- 

 ance from Mr. Skey, who >iic(<(dt(l iiini as direc- 



I tor of the Chrislchurch Magnetic Observatory when 

 Dr. Farr became professor of physics at Canterbury 

 College, while Mr. D. B. MacLeod took an active 

 part in the discussion of results. The observational 

 work extended over the years 1899 to 1909, in the 

 course of which 334 stations were occupied, including 

 forty-four in the Southern Islands, Chathams, and 

 West Coast Sounds. The instruments, a unifilar mag- 

 netometer and dip circle — the former once used by the 

 North American Boundary Commission, and by the 

 Jackson-Harmsworth Polar Expedition — were lent by 

 the old Kew Committee of the Royal Society. 



Particulars are given of the position of each station, 

 the date or dates of observation, the values of the 

 declination, dip, east and north components, hori- 

 zontal, vertical, and total forces. Owing to the long 

 period covered by the observations, considerable im- 

 portance attaches to the secular change corrections 

 necessary to reduce the data to a common epoch. 

 These were based on the magnetograph data obtained 

 at Christchurch from 1901 onwards, and on observa- 

 tions at repeat stations. Following the example 

 afforded by Rucker and Thorpe's survey of the British 

 Isles, New Zealand was divided into ten overlapping 



I districts. These were bounded by parallels of latitude, 

 the limits of three successive ones being, for instance, 

 38° and 40° S., 39° and 41° S., and 40^ and 42° S. 

 Assuming the change in any element within any one 

 district a linear function of the latitude and longitude, 

 the rates of change with latitude and longitude were 

 deduced in the first instance by the method of least 

 squares. A process of smoothing was then applied, to 

 secure continuity in passing from one district to the 

 next. 



The general nature of the results is best seen 

 by consulting the maps. The great length of New 

 Zealand from north to south necessitates two maps 

 for each element, one for the North Island, the other 

 for the South Island. The latter, it should be noticed, 

 is described as the " Middle Island " in the charts 

 principally devoted to the North Island, a memory of 

 the time when the small island, now known as Stewart 

 Island, was called the South Island. In the case of 

 the declination, starting at the extreme north of the 

 North Island, we have the isogonal of 14° o' E., slop- 

 ing from N.W. to S.E. Near the south of the North 

 Island, and north of the South Island, the isogonal 

 o^ ^5° 50' runs nearly due east and west, while to the 

 extreme south of the South Island the isogonal of 

 17° 10' slopes from N.E. to S.W. The isoclinals and 

 lines of equal horizontal force, on the other hand, 

 have a nearly parallel trend from extreme north to 

 south. The dip ranges from under 60° S. to over 

 71° S., and the horizontal force from 0275 C.G.S. 

 in the extreme north to 0200 C.G.S. in Stewart Island. 

 Other maps deal with the northerly, east, and ver- 

 tical components, and the total force. The two last 



> "A Magnetic Survey of the Dominion of New Zealand and Some of the 

 Outlying Islands for the Epoch June 30, 1903." By Dr. C. Coleridge Farr 

 Pp. 644-1, with 18 map*. (Wellington : John Mackay, Government Printer 



ii*i6.) 



