6o2 



NATURE 



[July 8, 1920 



The Eugenics Education Society has arranged for 

 the holding of a summer school of eugenics and civics 

 at Heme Bay College on July 31-August 14. The 

 inaugural address will be delivered by Prof. A. Dendy 

 on "Evolution in Human Progress," and there will 

 be lectures and discussions on heredity, biology, 

 eugenics, and sociology. The address of the society 

 is II Lincoln's Inn Fields, VV.C.2. 



A SUMMER school of civics is to be held, under the 

 auspices of the Civic Education League, at the 

 Technical Institute, High Wycombe, Bucks, on 

 July 31 to August 14. There are to be lectures on 

 maternity and child welfare work, analytical psycho- 

 logy, and reconstruction problems ; and courses on 

 civics, sex education, local and central government, 

 and anthropology have been arranged for. Further 

 particulars can be obtained from the Secretary, 

 Summer School of Civics, Leplav House, 65 Belgrave 

 Road, S.W.I. 



An important American academic change is an- 

 nounced in the simultaneous resignations of Dr. 

 G. Stanley Hall as president of Clark University and 

 of Dr. Edmund C. Sanford as president of Clark Col- 

 lege, and the appointment of Dr. Wallace W. Atwood 

 as single head of both the University and the college. 

 Dr. Atwood has been professor of physiography at 

 Harvard since 19 13, and is at present in the West in 

 charge of a field expedition for the U.S. Geological 

 Survey. In addition to his executive position, he will 

 occupy the chair of regional and physical geography at 

 Clark University. Dr. Stanley Hall is retiring iii order 

 thathe may devote his whole time to the completion 

 of several books on psychology which he has had in 

 hand for a considerable period. Dr. Sanford will take 

 the chair of psychology at Clark University, which 

 Dr. Stanley Hall is vacating together with the 

 presidency. 



We learn from Science that the following appro- 

 priations have recently been made by the U.S. General 

 Education Board : — to the Washington University 

 Medical School, St. Louis : For endowment, 250,000^ ; 

 for additional laboratory facilities and equipment, 

 i4,oooL To Yale Medical School : For endowment 

 (towards a total of 6oo,oooL), 200,000!. To Harvard 

 Medical School : For improved facilities in obstetrics, 

 60,000?. ; for the development of teaching in 

 psychiatry, 70,000^ To Johns Hopkins Medical 

 School : For development of a new department of 

 pathology (towards a total of i2o,oooZ.), 8000L From 

 the same source we learn that the Rockefeller Founda- 

 tion has made appropriations as follow :■ — To Dal- 

 housie University Medical School, Halifax : For 

 buildings and equipment, 8o,oooZ. ; for endowments, 

 2o,oooZ. To the Medical Research Foundation of 

 Elisabeth, Queen of the Belgians, Brussels : For 

 general purposes of medical research, 1,000,000 francs. 



The frontier between school and university has 

 recently been the subject of much discussion. The 

 Prime Minister's Committee on Science recommended 

 that eighteen should be the normal age of entry from 

 secondai-y schools to the universities, and in making 

 that recommendation it was supported by all the 

 witnesses who gave evidence on the subject. The 

 Board of Education, by its efforts to standardise the 

 Second School Examinations, and by watching the 

 advanced courses given in schools, has done much to 

 direct the studies of those who really are in the post- 

 matriculation stage while at school ; and the universi- 

 ties are faced, more than ever before, by the problem 

 of how to arrange for students who' enter with wide 

 differences of attainment. There is but one solution : 

 elasticity of organisation, both in the matter of 

 examinations and in that of prescribed courses. 



NO. 2645, VOL. 105] 



During" the past year a consultative council, on which 

 were representatives of seven universities and four 

 associations of school teachers, has been formed by 

 the Association of Science Teachers in order to discus's 

 the overlapping of school and university training. As 

 a result, a resolution was sent to the various 

 universities urging them "to recognise the value of the 

 post-matriculation work in efiicienl schools by accepting 

 the passing in subjects in one of the approved Second 

 School Examinations as exempting from the corre- 

 sponding subjects in the Intermediate Examination 

 and the first Medical Examination of the University." 

 The Association of Science Teachers is to be con- 

 gratulated on organising the discussions which have 

 led to this expression of opinion by a body well con- 

 stituted to view the situation from opposite sides. 



Societies and Academies. 



London. 

 Faraday Society, June 14. — Prof. A. W. Porter, vice- 

 president, in the chair. — Dr. A. Fleck and T. Wallace : 

 Conduction of electricity through fused sodium 

 hydrate. The resistance to the passage of current 

 through fused caustic soda and its rate of change with 

 temperature have been examined by a direct-current 

 method. In view of the difficulties of containing the 

 soda in a non-conducting non-porous vessel, the experi- 

 ments have been carried out in the centre of a large 

 mass of soda. The decomposition voltage has been 

 studied and found to be a variable quantity, 

 decreasing at the rate of 2-25 x 10-^ volts per degree 

 Centigrade rise in temperature. This figure differs 

 from the previously published figure of 2-95 x 10-^. 

 k has been found that when a current is passed 

 through fused sodium hydrate between two sodium 

 electrodes the current is always pcoportional to the 

 applied E.M.F.— Dr. H. F. Haworth : The measure- 

 ment of electrolytic resistances using alternating cur- 

 rents. An electrolytic cell acts like a capacity in 

 series with a resistance. If this capacity and resist- 

 ance be measured at various frequencies, they will 

 be found to vary with the frequency. If the imped- 

 ance of the cell is plotted vectorially with respect to 

 the resistance for various frequencies, the locus is a 

 straight line which cuts the resistance axis at infinite 

 frequency. This gives the true resistance of the elec- 

 trolyte. — J. L. Haughton ; The measurement of elec- 

 trical conductivity in metals and alloys at high tem- 

 p>eratures. The study of the electrical conductivity of 

 alloys has generally been carried out by measuring 

 the conductivity of the alloys at room-temperature and 

 plotting a curve connecting conductivity with com- 

 position, but much valuable information can be ob- 

 tained by plotting the curve connecting the composi- 

 tion and temperature and using a series of such curves 

 in the same Way as the ordinary thermal curves. The 

 paper describes a method which can be emoloved for 

 this.— N. V. S. Knibbs and H. Palfreeman ': The 

 theory of electro-chemical chlorate and perchlorate 

 formation. This paper is the outcome of a study of 

 the electrolytic formation of chlorate and perchlorate 

 based on recent large-scale operations. It aims at a 

 presentation of the theory of the mechanism of 

 chlorate and perchlorate formation and its application 

 to their technical production. A series of investiga- 

 tions was undertaken in order to elucidate a number 

 of doubtful points and to obtain data which were of 

 importance in the technical control of the process.^ — 

 J. B.- Firth: Sorption of iodine bv carbon. Tho 

 sorption of iodine by carbon was studied over a period 

 of five vears ; the forms of carbon used were lamp- 

 black, blood carbon, sugar carbon, animal carbon. 



