238 



NATURE 



[May 22, 1919 



examiners. The Thomson Committee recommended : 

 "That many permanent posts can best be filled by men 

 selected, not by the ordinary competitive examination, 

 but at a riper age on the ground of high scientific 

 qualifications and professional experience," It is to be 

 hoped that this point will not be overlooked ; it is of 

 paramount importance to the Empire. 



The Education Section of the British Association 

 has prepared a full programme for the meeting to 

 be held at Bournemouth. On Tuesday, September 9, 

 Sir Napier Shaw will deliver his presidential address 

 at 10 o'clock, the latter part of the morning being 

 devoted to the consideration of the free-place system, 

 with especial reference to the question of maintenance 

 grants and the tenure of the free-place holders. In 

 the afternoon a discussion upon the teaching of 

 English will take place. On Wednesday, Septem- 

 ber 10, the morning will be devoted to considering! 

 "The Method and Substance of Science Teaching"; 

 several well-known educationists have promised to take 

 part in the discussion, and an interesting debate is ex- 

 pected upon the two reports recently issued by Sir 

 Joseph Thomson's and Sir Richard Gregory's com- 

 mittees. During the Wednesday afternoon a joint 

 meeting with Section F (Economics) will consider the 

 question of "Education in Relation to Business." The 

 future of continuation schools is to be discussed on 

 the Thursday morning, and, in view of the changes 

 which the new Education Act will cause in these, this 

 should prove one of the most interesting features of 

 the meeting; for Thursday afternoon an animated 

 debate upon the relation of humanistic and scientific 

 studies is being arranged. It is hoped that Bishop 

 Welldon will be able to open a discussion upon 

 "Training in Citizenship " on the Friday morning ; and 

 in the afternoon of that day the question of private 

 schools will be considered, the latter subject being 

 one of especial interest in towns like Bournemouth. 

 Communications intended for the section should be 

 addressed to the Recorder, Mr. Douglas Berridge, 

 the College, Malvern. 



University Bulletin No. 19 of the University of 

 Illinois is devoted to a pictorial description of build- 

 ings, laboratories, and other facilities for instruction 

 and research at the College of Engineering and 

 Engineering Experiment Station of the University. 

 The work of the college includes twelve four-year 

 courses _ leading to degrees. The feature in which 

 the institution differs most from European practice is 

 the experiment station, an organisation created in 1903 

 to stimulate engineering education and to promote 

 the investigation of practical problems. Its control 

 is vested in a director, the heads of the departments 

 of the college of engineering, and the professor of 

 industrial chemistry. The researches are chiefly con- 

 ducted by full-time research assistants, research 

 graduate students, and special investigators engaged 

 for a limited time on single problems. The Univer- 

 sity maintains fourteen graduate studentships for re- 

 search, and two have been founded by the Illinois 

 Gas Association. Each carries a stipend of 500 dollars 

 and freedom from fees, and leads to a degree of 

 M.Sc. Half the time of these students is devoted to 

 research, and the remainder is available for study. 

 The station has published no bulletins and eight 

 circulars, mainly distributed free. In this pamphlet 

 interesting photographs are given of the buildings, 

 laboratories, libraries, testing machines, mining 

 machinery, arrangement for testing locomotives, elec- 

 tric railway test car, and training quarters for the 

 cadet corps. A department not usually found in 

 engineering colleges, at any rate in so comprehensive 

 a JForm, is that of ceramic engineering. It deals with 



NO. 2586, VOL. 103] 



the technology of industries concerned with clav, glass, 

 cement, lime, gypsum, and enamelled ware. 



\i is satisfactory to observe that serious efforts are 

 being made to provide for the soldiers belonging to 

 the Army of Occupation in Germany reasonable 

 educational facilities— general, scientific, and technical. 

 It is extremely important that men so situated, with 

 probably much leisure time at their disposal, should 

 have opportunities of pursuing their studies and of 

 continuing the -experience they have already gained in 

 their former avocations, and even of taking up some 

 new pursuit, where they have the initial gift of artistic 

 expression, so _ that when they return to civil life 

 they may readily find openings for effective employ- 

 ment. In a recent issue of the Cologne Post, a daily 

 paper published in English for the Army of the Rhine, 

 attention is directed to the establishment in the 

 Handels _ Realschule in Cologne of academic and 

 commercial courses with a wide range of subjects, and 

 to the Army Technical College which it is proposed 

 to open in a well-equipped factory at Siegburg, where 

 arrangements are made by which the apprentice or 

 improver can continue the practice of his vocation; 

 where also men and officers of artistic aptitudes can 

 take up specific arts and crafts; and where men of 

 satisfactory education can pursue their studies so as 

 to qualify them for degrees in engineering or cognate 

 subjects. Stress is laid upon due preparation for such 

 courses and thq great value of scientific direction, so 

 that workers shall know not onlv what to do, but 

 also why they do it. Mere empiricism is discouraged, 

 and a thorough grounding in the science of technical 

 pursuits made a matter of chief moment. There is, 

 moreover, already a science college at Bonn where 

 anv soldier desirous of taking up agricultural pur- 

 suits can enter upon the study of the science of agri- 

 culture and the allied sciences. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Physical Society, March 28.— Prof. C. H. Lees, 

 president, in the chair. — Sir Richard Glarebrook : 

 Metrology in the industries. In opening this discus- 

 sion Sir Richard Glazebrook traced briefly the early 

 history of metrology. The first application of really 

 accurate measurement to mechanical engineering was 

 chiefly due to Sir Joseph Whitworth, who taught 

 people to make their length measurements with great 

 accuracy and introduced reference gauges. The next 

 step was the use of limit gauges. This greatly 

 simplified the gauging of repetition work. At the time 

 of the Boer War the supplies of ammunition, especially 

 breech plugs of guns, were not interchangeable as 

 obtained from difi^erent shops. This led to the forma- 

 tion of the Engineering Standards Committee on 

 Gauges, which tackled the problem of producing 

 accurate gauges with defined limits and tolerance, and 

 by 1914 a certain number of firms had introduced the 

 use of limit gauges. In 1915 the demand for muni- 

 tions on a great scale brought home the great import- 

 ance of interchangeability and the need for strict 

 standardisation of gauges. When screw gauges were 

 first tested at the National Physical Laboratory the 

 rejections totalled 75 to 80 per cent. ; but after two 

 years this was reduced to about 20 per cent. Now, if 

 we are to maintain our position in peace, the maintenl 

 ance of interchangeability in engineering manu- 

 facture is equally necessary, so that we may manu- 

 facture in quantity. Much has yet to be done if we 

 are to keep ahead, and the co-ordination of research 

 with routine testing is vital to the progress of the 

 science. 



