June 7, 1900] 



NA rURE 



141 



been able to secure much valuable testimony of this sort on the 

 subject. 



A great deal, however, can be ascertained by careful trials, 

 such as those which have been undertaken on two occasions at 

 Liverpool (1S98 and 1S99), since measurements and data can be 

 obtained with a staff of observers for a limited period, which 

 could scarcely be secured in continuous working. The results 

 of these trials are given in tables and also statements by the 

 Chief Mechanical Engineer of the Lancashire and Yorkshire 

 Railway, on the working of a Thornycroft motor wagon ; the 

 Engineer-inChief, Mersey Docks and Harbour Board ; and the 

 City Engineer of Liverpool, on the working of Leyland motor 

 \\:igons ; and by Mr. Bryan Donkin, on the tests of motor 

 irriages at Richmond and Birmingham. 



Looking at the whole question, it may be safely said that the 

 motor vehicle has come to stay, and that its uses, both in peace 

 and war, will rapidly and enormously develop. The public 

 interest which is now seen partly by the immense number of 

 patents taken out in connection with the industry, partly by the 

 great growth of literature on the subject, and by the formation 

 of automotor clubs, is not a mere transient thing, and although 

 the motor vehicle is at present still somewhat of a rara avis 

 «pon our roads, it may not be going too far to think that the 



i coming century will see a development of locomotion upon 

 roads comparable with the development of locomotion of the 

 railway in the century which, according to our individual views 

 ■ of chronology, is either past or so very nearly past. 



THE UNIVERSITY OF BIRMINGHAM. 

 'X'HE present position of the scheme for the establishment of 

 ■*■ a Midland University was explained by Mr. Chamberlain, 

 Chancellor of the new University, at the first meeting of the 

 Court of Gover nors, held on Thursday last. In the course of 

 his remarks, Mr. Chamberlain is reported by the Times to have 

 said that it was desired to create a great teaching University, in 

 which all who came to them for it should find efficient and com- 

 plete instruction in every branch of knowledge. Again, they 

 desired that their University should be a school of research. 

 They were firmly convinced that that was necessarj' if it was to 

 maintain its dignity and great position. They believed that 

 those were the best teachers who were themselves constantly 

 learning, and that without adding continuously to the common 

 stock of knowledge they would not be fulfilling their duties. In 

 order to secure those objects they ventured to ask for a further 

 endowment of a quarter of a million sterling. To-day they were 

 able to announce that they had already received promises of 

 330,000/., the amount having been largely increased by the 

 munificent donations of Mr. Carnegie, of an anonymous bene- 

 factor, of Mr. Charles Solcroft, and of Mr. George Kenrick. 



They intended that their University should be a distinctive 

 University. In what he had hitherto indicated there vvas no- 

 thing original, nothing in which they were likely to specially 

 (litferentiate themselves from the other great Universities, 

 -])ecially from the modern Universities in this country and the 

 ler Universities of Scotland ; but they hoped that their 

 niversity would take some colour from its environment, that 

 it only would it be a school of general culture, but that it 

 iuld also practically assist the prosperity and welfare of the 

 strict in which it was situated by the exceptional attention 

 hich it would give to the teaching of science in connection with 

 - application to local industries and manufactures ; and this por- 

 : in of their task had turned out to be much greater, much more 

 sponsible, than they anticipated. They were encouraged in 

 luJertaking it by the gift of Mr. Carnegie, which was specially 

 be devoted to the creation of a college of science, following 

 anewhatthe example which had been set by the great colleges 

 1 the United States of America; and Mr. Carnegie followed 

 lis up by a proposal that a deputation from the intended Univer- 

 :iy should visit the chief seats of learning across the water. 

 Those who had read the report of the committee that had 

 sited Canada and the United States would begin to under- 

 md how it was that we were behindhand in the preparation 

 r that great struggle which must come, that commercial com- 

 •tition between nations in which the weakest would inevitably 

 > to the wall. For what did they find established both in the 

 nited States and in our own colony of Canada ? They found 

 leat institutions connected with a general University, with 

 lieges of science occupying large spaces, in which the area 



NO. 1597, VOL. 63 ] 



was counted by many acres, fully equipped with proper build- 

 ings, with the most modern and complete machinery, with the 

 latest scientific appliances, with laboratories for every con- 

 ceivable scientific purpose ; and in those great colleges a training 

 was given such as they desired to see imitated in this country — 

 a training based, as all education ought to be, upon a foundation 

 of general culture, but specialised in its course, highly specialised 

 according to particular and separate work which each student 

 intended to undertake in life. As a result of this they began to 

 see how it was that in America the great commercial and 

 industrial undertakings, the manufacturers and inventors, found 

 no difficulty whatever in obtaining the services of as many young 

 men as they might require to manage and complete and develop 

 their undertakings, all of them ready when they left college, 

 not merely to deal with the ordinary routine and management 

 of a business, but to bring to it the latest discoveries and to 

 apply the highest science to its development. That was what 

 they wanted in Birmingham, and they would not have the 

 University which they all had in their minds until they had 

 accomplished it. 



All that was wanted was money. The committee had pointed 

 out that to carry out this scheme with any completeness a 

 further sum, partly for endowment, partly for buildings and 

 machinery and appliances, of 155,000/. was required. He was 

 quite convinced, even from an incomplete examination of the 

 project, that they had under-estimated the cost. He thought 

 himself that another quarter of a million was the smallest sum 

 which they would require in order to put this portion of their 

 undertaking upon a thoroughly satisfactory basis. Well, they 

 must get it, and he anticipated that they would obtain it. He 

 anticipated that they would obtain it from two sources. No- 

 thing he thought was more striking to any one who had studied 

 educational progress in America and in our great colonies than 

 the readiness, the eagerness, with which men who had 

 acquired great wealth had been willing to devote a considerable 

 portion of it in sums to which we here, he was sorry to say, 

 were almost unaccustomed, to the promotion of the higher 

 education. It was the case in Canada, in the great Universities 

 of Montreal and Toronto ; it was the case in America, in 

 Cornell, in the Stamford University, in the Chicago University, 

 in the Columbia University ; and it was also visible in the great 

 donations which had been made to the elder Universities of 

 Harvard and of Yale. He could not doubt that the feeling that 

 no better application than this could be found for wealth would 

 grow among thein about Birmingham, and that although they 

 lived in a district which had hitherto not been remarkable f 'X 

 exceptional fortunes, yet which did contain many men of gre it 

 wealth. They also would find a tendency, from which the 

 University would derive advantage in the future, to make their 

 contributions towards such purposes as he had described. He 

 hoped that this might be the case, and he tlmught he might say 

 that he had confidence that it would be the case, and they might 

 expect before long that their funds would be largely increased 

 from some such source. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUtATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — Mr. Chawner, Master of Emmanuel College, 

 has been re-elected Vice-Chancellor. 



Mr. Frederick Harrison will deliver the Rede Lecture in the 

 Senate House on June 12, at noon. The honorary degrees 

 referred to last week will be conferred on the same day, at 

 3 p.m. 



The Knightbridge Professorship is vacant by the resignation 

 of Dr. Sidgwick, who has been seriously ill. 



Mr. L. R. Wilberforce, of Trinity College, has been elected 

 a University Lecturer in Experimental Physics in the place of 

 Mr. W. N. Shaw. 



A grant of 50/. from the Balfour Fund has been made to Mr. 

 J. S. Budgett in aid of his researches on the development of 

 Polypterus. 



Dr. AUbutt and Dr. Collingridge have been appointed dele- 

 gales to represent the University at the International Congress 

 of Hygiene and Demography to be held at Paris next August. 



The 500th anniversary of the foundation of the University of 

 Cracow will be celebrated to-day, June 7. Representatives 

 will be present from most of the European universities. 



