344 



NATURE 



[November 27, 1919 



astronomy as a class subjucl of L;i-iu-iai cduiation has 

 unfortunately suHercd a lamentable eclipse. Globes 

 have been ousted by calorimeters. Hence the ignor- 

 ance of even otherwise cultured people of the very 

 elements of the science. Lately there have been wel- 

 come signs of a recognition of its educational value, 

 both in the elementary and in the secondary sphools. In 

 the Middle .Ages astronomy was one of the seven sub- 

 jects in the curriculum of a liberal education. Those 

 who were privileged to listen to the charming dis- 

 course of Prof. Nunn to the .Association of Mathi'- 

 matical Masters last Januarv were able to understand 

 how much can be done with cardboard, cylinders, 

 cubes, and other simple appliances to illustrate the 

 chief motions of the heavenly bodies, the observations 

 being made and recorded by the pupils themselves. 



Very heartily then do we welcome, for both its 

 scientific and its educational capabilities, the excellent 

 model lately constructed by Dr. William Wilson, and 

 exhibited to the Royal and Royal .Astronomical 

 Societies, the British .Association, and most of the 

 leading educational and astronomical societies. Every- 

 one who has seen the model has given it unstinted 

 praise. The mechanism is very good. Gearing is 

 done away with, its place being ingeniously supplied 

 bv cords and pulleys, with tension regulators and ad- 

 justable driving-wheels. There is nothing much 'o 

 get out of order in the machine. If it does, it can 

 easilv be repaired. 



But the great value of the model is in the orderly 

 sequence of the astronomical phenomena which can 

 be illustrated by its aid. The pupil is made to advance 

 gradually from the simple to the more complex move- 

 ments of sun, earth, and moon, illustrating such 

 topics as the year, month, seasons, phases of the 

 moon, motions of the earth, and eclipses, until finally 

 he reaches such phenomena as the retrograde motion 

 of the moon's nodes, the forward motion of the line of 

 apsides of the moon's orbit, and the nature, number, 

 and character of the eclipses possible in any year. 

 It would be a mistake to set up the whole model at 

 once. The curiosity of the pupil should be aroused 

 and his interest sustained by adding the parts 

 gradually and in due order, beginning with the simpler 

 parts, and then advancing to the more complex move- 

 ments. 



Dr. Wilson is to be heartily congratulated on having 

 produced such a valuable, workable astronomical 

 model. So many science masters — excellent omen ! — 

 have desired to acquire it that he has felt justified in 

 puttins' it unon the market and gettinf it m.^de in 

 quantities. The orice is 22Z. net, c-irriage oaid to 

 any part of the United Kingdom. .AH communica- 

 tions regarding the model should be addressed to Dr. 

 Wilson himself at 43 Fellows Road, London. N.W.3. 



h. L. CORTIE. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Gl.'Vsgow. — .At a graduation ceremony held on 

 November 18, honorary degrees were conferred on the 

 .American .Ambassador, Lord Weir, Sir Joseph Maclav, 

 the Duchess of .AthoU, Dame Helen Gwvnne-Vaughan, 

 and others, in recognition of war service. 



Leeds. — The following honorary degrees have been 

 conferred : — D.Sc. : .Admiral Sir Henrv Jackson, 

 First Sea Lord. 1915-16; .Surg. -Gen. .Sir .Alfred Keogh ; 

 Sir .ATmroth Wright; Prof. W. H. Bragg; and Mr. 

 J. G. Baker. 



I^ONDON. — The Senate has anpointed Sir Cooper 

 Perry to the post of principal officer, which has been 

 in .tbeyance since Sir Henrv Miers's resignation in 

 the summer of 1915. .Sir Cooper Perry has repre- 



NO. 2613, VOL. 104] 



sented the faculty of medicine on the Senate from igoo 

 to 1905, and again from 1915 to the present time, and 

 has been Vice-Chancellor of the University since June, 

 1917. He will take up his new duties on February 1 

 next. 



The .Senate has adopted a resolution expressing ap- 

 preciation of the generosity of the Worshipful Com- 

 pany of Goldsmiths in presenting to the London 

 Hospital Medical College 15,000^. National War Bonds 

 for the endowment of a University chair of bacterio- 

 logy bearing the name of the company and tenable 

 at that college. The thanks of the Senate have also 

 been accorded to Lord Cowdray for a donation of 

 lo.oooi. towards the fund for the reconstruction and 

 re-equipment of the engineering buildings at Univer- 

 sity College, and for a promise of an additional dona- 

 tion of the .same amount to be given when the total 

 sum collected in response to the appeal for this purpose, 

 reaches 70,000/. 



.A bequest of approximately 3000/. is made in the 

 will of the late Mr. T. S. Hughes for the encourage- 

 ment by scholarships or otherwise of original medical 

 research at the L'niversity. 



In recognition of the munificent gift of 34, 51x1/. bv 

 Sir Ralph Forster, Bart., to the fund for the chemistry 

 building and equipment at University College, i; Has 

 been resolved that the organic department of the 

 chemical laboratories should be known by his nj me. 



The degree of D.Sc. (Economics) has been conferred 

 upon .Mr. R. C. Rawlley, an internal student, of the 

 London .School of Economics, for a thesis entitled 

 "Economics of the Silk Industry." 



The Graham Legacy Committee has, under the 

 regulations for the administration of the Charle.> 

 Graham Medical Research Fund, made the first award 

 of the gold medal to Dr. Charles B(jlton in recogni- 

 tion of the original work in experimental pathology 

 which he has conducted in the medical school of 

 University College Hospital. 



Oxford. — The twenty-first Boyle lecture wa:- dt - 

 livered by Prof. A. Keith on November 19. Taking 

 for his subject " Race and Nationality from an 

 .Anthropological Point of View," the lecturer pointed 

 out that racial problems properly so called came into 

 \'iew only at the beginning of the nineteenth century. 

 The prehistoric record might be divided into a long 

 period of natural subsistence, marked by little change 

 of condition, and a shorter period of conquest of 

 Nature, which was rapid and fateful. The outfit for 

 the first period, both bodily and mental, being in 

 some respects unsuitable for the second, the racial 

 problem resolved itself in elTect into a conflict between 

 inherited instinct .and present conditions. Illustrations 

 of both racial and national feeling consequent on the 

 contact of different peoples were given from the 

 negroes of North .America, the French-Canadians in 

 their relation to the surrounding white population, the 

 Europeans and Maoris in New Zealand. The 

 mingling of blood in South America appeared to have 

 been socially less successful than the maintenance of 

 racial frontiers in the north. Racial feeling, concluded 

 the lecturer, is implanted by Nature for her own pur- 

 poses of evolution. 



Dr. J. Proudman has been appointed professor of 

 applied mathematics in the L^niversity of Liverpool. 



The Toronto correspondent of the Tiiucs announced 

 on November 24 that the buildings of the Laval Uni- 

 versitv at Montreal have been destroyed bv fire, and 

 the damage is estimated at 400,000/. The chief 

 damage was done in the medical department of the 

 I University. 



