July i6, 1891] 



NATURE 



^S7 



schools in agricultural districts might well offer to lads 

 who have passed through the successive standards, or as 

 one addressed to the sons of farmers, and supplying that 

 form of instruction which it is the duty of agricultural 

 colleges to impart. Another lecture is offered on the 

 management of poultry. This is more definite and more 

 hopeful ; and when we remember that the students who 

 come up for these summer meetings are, for the most 

 part, ladies, who can well be supposed to take an intelli- 

 gent interest in this part of farming operations, we must 

 admit that the subject is well chosen. Manures of various 

 characters form the subject of the other two lectures, and 

 will be doubtless of a sufficiently technical character. 



The literature and history' lectures are of special 

 interest, and by the combination of many lecturers are 

 made to cover with great completeness the mediaeval 

 period. Mr. Frederic Harrison gives, as an inaugural 

 lecture, a survey of the thirteenth century, and strikes the 

 keynote of this section ; while in the entire course, which 

 embraces some sixty lectures, we meet the names of Prof. 

 Dicey, of Mr. York Powell, of Mr. Boas, and a host of 

 others, affording alike a sufficient guarantee for the 

 excellence of the work, and a happy augury for the 

 success of the meeting. 



THE PROPOSED TEACHING UNIVERSITY 

 FOR LONDON. 



/^N Monday, at the Council Office in Downing Street 

 ^-^ the Universities Committee of the Privy Council, 

 consisting of the Lord President of the Council (Viscount 

 Cranbrook), the Earl of Selborne, Lord Monk Bretton, 

 Lord Basing, and Lord Sandford, reassembled for the 

 purpose of giving their decision on the petition of King's 

 and University Colleges for the grant of a charter for the 

 establishment of a Teaching University for London. 



The Earl of Selborne, in giving the opinion of their 

 Lordships upon the draft charter of the proposed Uni- 

 versity, said, with regard to the opposition of the existing 

 University of London, that some of the objections made 

 might be treated as disallowed. It had been understood 

 by their Lordships that a minimum course of two years' 

 study at the new University would be required. If that 

 was so, their Lordships were satisfied, and would say no 

 more upon the point. The objections put forward by the 

 medical faculty were generally disallowed. The word 

 " London" would have to be omitted from the charter, 

 but the University might be called either "the Albert 

 University" or "the Metropolitan University." With 

 regard to the suggestion that ten members of the 

 Faculty of Medicine should be elected to the Council, 

 their Lordships were of opinion that the medical schools 

 should fill five places upon that body, or, if it were pre- 

 ferred, that each school should elect one member for the 

 Medical Board of Study. If the Royal Colleges and the 

 medical schools agreed to come in together, however, the 

 number of members on the Council might be raised. 

 Their Lordships did not approve of the proposed strength 

 of the Council, and thought that four of the places might 

 be accorded to the Faculty of Law. Teachers in any 

 branch of science, their Lordships considered, should be 

 admitted as members of the Science Faculty, and the 

 six places on the Council which it was proposed to give 

 to the Royal Colleges should be suppHed according to the 

 29th paragraph of the Royal Commissioners' Report. If the 

 medical schools and colleges declined to come in at first, 

 provision ought to be made to allow them to do so in the 

 future. Their Lordships thought that a place upon the 

 Council might be given to the Apothecaries' Society, but 

 they were not disposed to insist upon that being done 

 The view of their Lordships upon the question of 

 honorary degrees was that no such degrees should be 

 granted in medicine, and that the holding of an honorary 



NO. 1133, VOL. 44] 



degree should be no qualification for election to the 

 Council. The ordinary degree in medicine should not 

 be granted until the whole of the prescribed conditions 

 had been fulfilled. 



NOTES. 

 The decision of the Universities Committee of the Privy 

 Council with regard to the proposed new University for 

 London is one that might have been expected from a body 

 of non-experts. It is hasty, and will give satisfaction to no 

 one by whom the subject has been seriously considered. It 

 may throw back the higher teaching in London for half a 

 century. 



Mr. Walter Besant, in an imaginary "Page from the 

 Kaiser's Diary," notes that there are not to be seen at Court 

 any of " the people who make the real greatness of the country 

 —its traders, its manufacturers, its men of science, art, and 

 literature." It has been remarked that in this respect the City 

 Corporation, last Friday, followed the example of the Court, no 

 representative of science, or literature, or art, as such, having 

 been invited to the Guildhall banquet. It would have been 

 better to follow the precedent set at the time of the Czar's visit, 

 when a large number of the leading scientific men were asked 

 to the reception at the Foreign Office, and were personally 

 presented. 



At the ensuing British Association meeting at Cardiff, it is 

 proposed to hold in Section A, if possible in conjunction with 

 Section G, a discussion on "Units and their Nomenclature," 

 having special regard to the new electrical and magnetic units 

 now becoming necessary for practical purposes. 



The Secretary of State for India in Council has appointed, on 

 the nomination of the Government of India, the following 

 persons to represent it on the permanent governing body of 

 the Imperial Institute, for the year ending April 30, 1892 : — 

 W. T. Thiselton-Dyer, C.M.G., F.R.S., Director, Royal 

 Gardens, Kew ; General James T. Walker, R.E., C.B., F.R.S., 

 late Surveyor-General of India ; John W. P. Muir-Mackenzie, 

 Under-Secretary to the Government of India Revenue and 

 Agricultural Department. 



Sir J. D. Hooker has been elected a Foreign Member of the 

 Academy of Sciences in Buda-Pesth. 



The Secretary of State for the Colonies has appointed, 

 on the nomination of Kew, Mr. C. A. Barber, late Scholar 

 of Christ's College, Cambridge, and University Demonstrator 

 in Botany, to be Superintendent of the recently created Agri- 

 cultural Department of the Leeward Islands. The Superin- 

 tendent will reside in Antigua, and will have the general 

 supervision of the botanical stations at Antigua, Dominica, 

 Montserrat, and St. Kitts-Nevis. 



The Council of University College, Liverpool, have appointed 

 Mr. Francis Gotch, of Oxford, to their new Chair of Physiology. 



The Foreign Office has expressed the wish that the " Flora 

 of Tropical Africa," prepared at Kew under the editorship of 

 Prof. Oliver, and of which three volumes have appeared, should 

 be continued and completed. It is calculated that four more 

 volumes will be required, and the Treasury has sanctioned a 

 scheme by which the necessary funds will be provided. 



The Accademia dei Lincei of Rome has awarded to Prof 

 Saccardo, of Padua, in acknowledgment of his labours in 

 mycology, the Royal prize of 10,000 francs intended for the 

 encouragement of morphological researches. 



