i88 



NA TURE 



[June 24, 1897 



school instruction had long been too bookish, too little practical, 

 and that the friends of technical instruction were fully justified 

 in calling attention to the grave deficiencies in our system, 

 especially to the want of sounder teaching in physical science 

 and of better training in the application of those sciences to the 

 enrichment of the community and to the practical business of 

 life. 



Prof. Oscar Pyferven, of the University of Ghent, who repre- 

 sented the Belgian Government, read a paper on " L'Enseigne- 

 ment Professionnel et I'lnitiative Privee en Belgique " ; and 

 M. E. Seve (Consul-General for Belgium) read a paper on 

 " Technical and Commercial Instruction in Belgium." 



Prof. Wertheimer, principal of Merchant Venturers' Technical 

 College, Bristol, read a paper on the influence of various examin- 

 ing bodies on the progress of technical and commercial educa- 

 tion in England. He held that it behoved them to watch 

 closely any attempt to establish new examinations. The tech- 

 nical instruction committees of some County Councils were 

 already instituting examinations of their own ; in a very few 

 cases these might be necessary to meet special local require- 

 ments. But, as a rule, they were not needed, and it would be 

 wiser to endeavour to modify existing examinations, if necessary, 

 rather than to establish new ones. 



On Thursday a paper by Mr. Quintin Hogg, on " Poly- 

 technics," was read by Dr. William Garnett, who also gave an 

 account of the work of the Technical Education Board of the 

 London County Council. In commenting upon the latter 

 paper, Sir John Lubbock said that too much of the money 

 went to the elementary and too little to the higher training of 

 those who were to be the leaders of industry. 



The next paper was on "Reforms in the Organisation of 

 Technical Education," by Prof. Silvanus P. Thompson, F. R.S., 

 who said that the provision made on the continent for the higher 

 training in chemistry might be understood from the fact that the 

 entire establishment of the Regent Street Polytechnic, chemical 

 laboratory, gymnasium, swimming bath, theatre, kinematograph, 

 and all, might be accommodated within the space provided for 

 the chemical laboratory alone in the polytechnic at Munich. 

 The chemical laboratory of the polytechnic at Zurich exceeded 

 in contents the whole of the technical schools at the People's 

 Palace. The chemical laboratory of Berlin was larger than the 

 whole building of the City of London College. The physics 

 laboratory at Zurich was considerably larger than the whole 

 building of the Finsbury Technical College, and the cost nearly 

 twice as much. 



The remainder of the papers fm Thursday dealt with commer- 

 cial education, the organisation of examinations, and the de- 

 velopment of technical instruction in secondary schools. 



The concluding session of the conference, held on Friday last, 

 was devoted exclusively to the consideration of papers by ladies 

 on a variety of aspects of technical and secondary education. 

 Mr. Mundella, M.P., presided. 



Miss Alice Mitchell read a paper on the " Teaching of 

 Domestic Economy in Girls' Secondary Schools." In the high 

 schools she thought the great failure was the absence of the 

 practical side, for all schools suffered from the want of labo- 

 ratory facilities. 



A paper was read by the Countess of Warwick on "Tech- 

 nical Education in Rural Districts." She said she had under- 

 taken the task believing that a careful development of the sub- 

 ject might help not a little to stay the depopulation of our vil- 

 lages. An intelligent appreciation of natural phenomena and 

 natural laws, when applied to agriculture, might go a long way 

 to relieve the depression from which country districts were so 

 keenly suffering. The elements of chemistry and physics, 

 geology, botany, and zoology might be taught with great 

 advantage to the future farmer or practical agriculturist. 

 We should no doubt some day have a rational system of edu- 

 cation, and not a disjointed one, as at present, when due regard 

 would be paid to the co-ordination of subjects of instruction. 

 At present, the great want was co-operation in all branches, 

 but this was likely to remain while every branch of education 

 was under a separate and distinct authority, often antagonistic 

 to each other and encroaching on one another's grounds. In the 

 same town they might see the voluntary schools, board schools, 

 middle schools, grammar schools, and technical classes all being 

 carried on under separate rate authorities, who have no regard 

 for each other's work, and consequently overlapping each other's 

 efforts, in many directions leading to waste of time, money, and 

 energy. District technical schools should be opened within 



NO, 1443, VOL. 56] 



given areas, or a technical side to existing schools be developed ; 

 or, perhaps better still, the schools of the whole district should 

 be affiliated, with a technical school attached, for the use of 

 the pupils from all. The money received by county councils 

 for the technical education grant might be well spent in equip- 

 ping such schools. If a plot of land could be attached to the 

 technical schools, it would be very useful for the purpose of 

 experiment and demonstration in the field. 



At the close of a discussion, the Chairman said Lady War- 

 wick's paper was so full of suggestions that it was impossible to 

 comment upon them briefly. It involved educational reforms 

 of the highest importance, and the first was that one public 

 authority in each district should see that education was properly 

 carried out. Lady Warwick had put aside the utilitarian view ; 

 nevertheless, this was a subject of considerable moment, both 

 in town and country. Denmark was far ahead of us in agri- 

 cultural matters, and sent to this country produce to the value 

 of 10,000,000/. annually. It was an extraordinary thing that 

 we should have to pay enormous sums of money to foreign 

 countries for supplies which we ought to be able to provide 

 much better at home. They were told that foreigners were 

 more intelligent than our people ; and although he did not 

 believe that, we should educate our people and try to make 

 them as intelligent, fruitful, and productive as their foreign 

 competitors. 



A large number of other papers were read before the Con- 

 gress, but the limitations of space prevent us from referring to 

 them. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 

 American Journal of Science, June. — Bacteria and the de- 

 composition of rocks, by J. C. Branner. In criticism of the 

 somewhat largely prevailing idea that bacteria are the cause of 

 much of what is called the decay of rocks, it must be remem- 

 bered that nitrifying bacteria not only do not penetrate the 

 rocks themselves to any considerable depth, but they do not 

 even penetrate the soil to a depth of more than three or four 

 feet. Granites are, on the other hand, often decomposed to 

 depths of more than lOO feet. — On Wellsite, a new mineral, by 

 J. H. Pratt and H. W. Foote. This mineral occurs at the 

 Buck Creek corundum mine in Clay Co., North Carolina, 

 associated with albite, felspar, and hornblende. No crystals 

 found exceed 2 mm. in length. They are monoclinic and 

 twinned, brittle, with a vitreous lustre and no apparent cleav- 

 age. They are colourless and transparent or white, with a 

 hardness of between 4 and 4*5, and a density of about 2 "3. 

 Chemically, it is a barium or calcium hydrated silicate corre- 

 sponding to the formula RAH2Si30j|,.3H._,0, and is therefore 

 allied to Phillip.site, harmotome, and stilbite. — The magnetic 

 increment of rigidity in strong fields, by H. D. Day. The 

 author employs extremely strong fields in order to bring out 

 clearly the relation between magnetisation and the phenomena 

 of magnetic rigidity. He shows that long after magnetic 

 saturation has been reached the increase of rigidity due to in- 

 crease of field intensity goes on, and that the limit of the latter 

 is not reached even with the highest field intensities attainable. 

 As the field becomes stronger, the increment of rigidity varies 

 more and more regularly with the twist, the tendency being that 

 in fields indefinitely large the increment of rigidity would be 

 proportional to the twist applied.— The broadening of the 

 sodium lines by intense magnetic fields, by A. St. C. 

 Dunstan, M. E. Rice, and C. A. Kraus. The phenomenon of 

 the magnetic broadening of the sodium lines discovered by 

 Zeemann may be easily observed with the aid of Michelson's 

 interferometer. Light from a Bunsen flame containing a 

 sodium salt is sent on to a plate of plane glass which partly 

 reflects and partly transmits it to a fixed and a movable mirror. 

 The fringes produced in the telescope by their recombination 

 are made less visible by the broadening of the line observed. 

 The curve of visibility gives the amount of the broadening. 

 In the most intense field the broadening is in the ratio of i to 

 17. It is proportional to the field intensity. — The relative 

 motion of the earth and the ether, by A. A. Michelson. This 

 was investigated by an interference experiment in which a beam 

 of light was made to travel round a rectangle in a vertical E. and 

 W. plane, and to return along the same path. If the ether near 

 the earth's surface moves with the earth, and the ether above 

 the atmosphere is stationary, there must be some difference of 



