May 24, 191 7] 



NATURE 



257 



been enormous. It is well known to be usually a 

 wholesome, and certainly a useful, food. Compared 

 with its extensive use, the cases of illness charged 

 against it may be regarded as negligible. The in- 

 florescence has also been tried, but evidently not very 

 much, and with diverse results. The consumption 

 of the leaf-blades has apparently never been general 

 or considerable, by no means comparable with that of 

 the leaf-stalks, but the baneful eflects of doing so are 

 relatively so marked that it may be said decisively that 

 rhubarb leaf-blades cannot be recommended for 

 general use as a food. While experiments in such 

 matters are often necessar\% and, if attended with 

 caution, are desirable, carelessness in recommending 

 them or in putting them into practice may place one 

 in a less enviable posiiion than those of whom it has 

 been said, "Happy from such conceal'd, if still do lie, 

 of roots and herbs the unwholsom luxury"; and the 

 injudicious experiment in eating insufficiently tested 

 articles of food may lead one to "discover their 

 malignity in dangerous and dreadful symptoms." 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Oxford. — The eighth Halley lecture will be delivered 

 at the University Museum on Tuesday, June 12, at 

 5.30 p.m., by Prof. Arthur Schuster. The subject is 



Terrestrial Magnetism: Past, Present, and Future." 



On May 22 Congregation passed the preambles of 

 a series of statutes reconstituting the boards of elec- 

 tors to various profe?sorships, and establishing a com- 

 mittee for advanced studies. 



The annual report of the visitors of the Uni- 

 versity Observatory has been presented to Convo- 

 cation. In it the visitors express their sorrow at the 

 death of the late Prof. Esson, who acted as secretary 

 to the visitors durinp- the whole forty-two years of the 

 work of the observatoiy. Several lectures to military 

 bodies have been given by the director (Prof. H. H. 

 Turner), including lectures in France and in thj camps 

 on Salisbury Plain. Research has pone forward in 

 spite of imavoidable drawbacks, and many papers 

 have been published by members of the staff and 

 others in the course of the year. These include valu- 

 able memoirs bv Prof. Turner, Miss E. F. Bellamy, 

 Miss M. A. Bla'gg (on Baxendell's "Variable Stars"), 

 and Mr. R. J. Pocock. 



Miss Bowex Colthurst has been appointed prin- 

 cipal of the College of Agriculture, Holmes Chapel, 

 Cheshire. The college is connected with the Univer- 

 sity of Manchester, and is fully equipped for thorough 

 training in practical and scientific agriculture. 



Ax influential deputation of London members of 

 Parliament and of the London County Council Educa- 

 tion Committee and officials waited upc«i Mr. Fisher 

 at the Board of Education on Tuesday to ask the 

 Board for an increased grant for education purposes 

 in London. In reply Mr. Fisher said he was prepared 

 to recommend to the Treasun,- that an increased grant 

 should be made. The grant would probably amount 

 to somethinsr above i,ooo,oooZ., but it would be given 

 on the distinct understanding that the money should 

 be used for education purposes only, and not for relief 

 of present rates. 



The Elementary Education Sub-Committee of the 

 London County Council has had under consideration 

 the following resolution passed by the Central Con- 

 sultative Committee of Headmasters : — " That the time 

 is now ripe for the compulson,- introduction of the 

 metric s\-stem." The sub-committee is of the opinion 

 that the time has now arrived when, in order to 



obviate the waste of time which is caused in the 

 schools by the present system of weights and measures, 

 and to facilitate commercial transactions, his .Majesty's 

 Government should be asked to make the metric 

 systern compulsorj-. The Education Committee of the 

 council is in agreement with these views, and has 

 recommended: — "That the council is of opinion that 

 the time lias arrived for the compulsory introduction 

 of the metria system ; that a communication to this 

 effect be conveyed to his Majesty's Government; and 

 that the council be recommended accordingly." 



.\ BOOKLET describing the facilities for study pro- 

 vided by the various departments of the Inriperial 

 College of Science and Technology can be obtained 

 on application to the seaetary of the college. The 

 guide was drawn up in the first instance specially for 

 headmasters and science masters of schoo's and for col- 

 leges. It has been re-issued to provide persons anxious to 

 have information as to the industrial careers for voung 

 men to which the Imperial College is specially direct- 

 ing its attention. The number of posts of an indus- 

 trial character, in which high scientific education is 

 of great importance, is constantly increasing through- 

 out the Empire, and the Imperial College should after 

 the war attract an ever-increasing number of students. 

 We have also received separate parts of the calendar 

 of the Imperial College, giving complete prospectuses 

 of the associated colleges of the Imperial College, 

 namely, the City and Guilds (Engineering) College, the 

 Royal College of Science, and the Royal School of. 

 Mines. 



Ix August of last year the London County Council 

 resolved that, subject to the establishment at the Im- 

 perial College of Science and Technology of a depart- 

 ment of technical optics under a separate head; to the 

 Government grant to tne college being increased in 

 respect of such department ; and to .certain other con- 

 ditions, the council's grants to the college be in- 

 creased in respect to technical optics by an amount 

 proportionate to the increase in the Government grant 

 as 1:3; provided that the increase in the council's 

 equipment grant shall not exceed 750/., and that the 

 increase in the council's maintenance grant shall not 

 exceed 1000/. a year. The governing body of the 

 Imperial College has now informed the council that 

 it has adopted the recommendation of its Technical 

 Optics Committee — which is also the .Advisory Council 

 for technical optics — that Mr. F. J. Cheshire be ap- 

 pointed director of the department of technical optics 

 for a period of five years commencing June i, 1917. 

 at a salary of 1000/. a year. The Education Com- 

 mittee of the council, at a meeting held yesterday, 

 recommended that this appoiniment be approved. 



We have received from the office of the Field and 

 Queen, Breams Buildings, London, E.C.4, a copy of 

 the English edition of " British L'niversities and the 

 War : a Record and its Meaning," a little book com- 

 piled at the request of several correspondents in the- 

 United States who expressed the wish to have some 

 jiemianent record of the response by the universities 

 of the United Kingdom to the countr\-'s call for volun- 

 teers. The sixteen brief contributions by the vice- 

 chancellors, principals, and masters representative of 

 the various universities form an inspiring record of 

 noble endeavour on the part of our university men ; 

 and to these unadorned statements of patriotic sacrifire 

 and accomplishment Mr. Fisher, the President of the 

 Board of Educatioi, has contributed a gracefully 

 appropriate preface. "No line," says Mr. Fisher, 

 "can be drawn between student and teacher, between 

 voung and old. Many of the most brilliant teachers 

 in the country have given their li%-es on the battlefield ; 

 manv a bright star in the firmament of science has 



NO. 2482, VOL. 99] 



