January i6, 1896J 



NATURE 



261 



trust.' His 'Programme of Organisation' was suVjmittecl to 

 the Board of Regents in the following year, was adopted as its 

 governing policy, and has been reprinted in full or in part in 

 almost every annual report. If the Institution is now known 

 and praised throughout the world of science and letters, it is 

 fulfilling the will of its founder and the reasonable expectations 

 of the nation which accepted and established the trust, the credit 

 is mainly due to the practical wisdom, and the catholic spirit, 

 and the indomitable perseverance of its first Secretary, to whom 

 tlie establishing act gave much power of shaping ends, which as 

 rough-hewn by Congress were susceptible of various diversion. 

 I lenry took his stand on the broad and ample terms of the be- 

 (juest, ' for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men,' 

 and he never narrowed his mind, and to locality gave what was 

 meant for mankind. He proposed only one restriction, of wisdom 

 and necessity, that in view of the limited means of the Institu- 

 tion, it ought not to undertake anything which could be done, 



Fig. 5. — Samuel Pierpont Langley, Third Secretary of the Smithsonian 

 Institution. 



1(1 well done, by other existing instrumentalities. So as occa- 

 nn arose he lightened its load and saved its energies by giving 



er to other agencies some of its cherished work." 



His statue, erected by order of Congress, stands in the 

 ■-mithsonian Park. 



Henry was succeeded in the ofifice of Secretary by Prof. 

 Spencer Fullerton Baird, then the leading authority on the 

 mammals, birds, fishes, and reptiles of America, the founder 

 of the U.S. Fish Commission, and of " public fish culture," 

 elected in 1878 ; and he in his turn, by Samuel Pierpont 

 Langley, pre-eminent as physicist and astronomer, the inventor 

 of the bolometer, the discoverer of a great portion of the infra- 

 red spectrum, and a high authority upon the physics of the 

 atmosphere, elected in 1887. 



Each of the three Secretaries, in addition to his general 

 administrative work, has made some feature of the general plan 

 peculiarly his own. Secretary Henry gave especial attention to 



NO. 1368, VOL. 53] 



the publications, the system of international exchanges, and 

 the development of that great system of meteorological obser- 

 vation and weather preidiction which has since become the 

 Weather Bureau. 



Secretary Baird continued the development of the museum, 

 which had been under his special charge during his twenty- 

 seven years of service as assistant secretary, secured the erection 

 of the new museum building, gave much attention to zoological 

 and ethnological explorations and, in connection with his 

 special work as Commissioner of Fisheries, secured the con- 

 struction of the exploring ship Albatross, and carried on 

 extensive investigations in American waters. 



To Secretary Langley is due the establishment of the Nationa 

 Zoological Park and the Astro-physical Observatory, renewed 

 activity in the library and exchange work, and a new system 

 of encouragement of original research in the physical as well as 

 the biological sciences. Under his administration, also, im- 

 portant donations and bequests have been added to the 

 permanent fund of the Institution. The limit of 1,000,000 dols. 

 which may by law be permanently deposited in the United 

 States Treasury at 6 per cent., having nearly been reached, 

 Congress has recognised the authority of the Institution to 

 receive and administer other funds beyond this limit, thus 

 making it possible for it to undertake the administration of 

 financial trusts for any purpose within the scope of its general 

 plan. 



( To be continued. ) 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Cambridge. — A memorial is being circulated for the signature 

 of members of the Senate, asking the Council of the Senate to 

 sanction the formation of a Syndicate to consider on what con- 

 ditions and with what restrictions, if any, women should be 

 admitted to degrees in the University. It states that "for 

 nearly fifteen years, since February 1 88 1, the University has 

 formally admitted the students of Girton'and Newnham to its 

 Honour examinations, and has practically co-operated in their 

 instruction by permitting them to attend the lectures of its 

 teaching staff, and to share the advantages of the University 

 Library and other institutions. At the present time, eight out 

 of the ten universities of Great Britain — viz., the University of 

 London, the Victoria University, the new University of Wales, 

 the four Scottish Universities, and the University of Durham — 

 admit women to degrees. The result is that the women to whom 

 Cambridge now awards only certificates, feel the inferiority of 

 ; heir position in this respect as compared with that of women 

 \\\o pass the examinations of these other Universities. Further, 

 committee of the Council of the University of Oxford was ap- 

 >inted some months ago to consider the desirability of granting 

 cgrees to the women students at Oxford, w^hose position is now 

 imewhat similar to that of the students of Girton and Newnham. 

 There seems, in short, to be a danger lest Cambridge — which 

 Acnty years ago was acting as pioneer in the movement for 

 \ lending the advantages of academic education to women — 

 lould be actually the last to grant them the traditional and 

 istomary recognition of their work. The conditions under 

 A hich degrees should be granted require very careful considera- 

 tion. It is hoped that the syndicate of which we desire the ap- 

 pointment may be able to frame proposals which will command 

 the assent of all who are interested in the academic education of 



We are informed that Mr. N. Busch has not been appointed 

 Director of the Botanic Garden of the University of Dorpat, but 

 assistant to Mr. N. Kuznetzov, formerly Assistant Secretary of 

 the Imparial Russian Geographical Society, who has been 

 also appointed Extraordinary Professor of Botany at the same 

 University, instead of Dr. Russow retired. 



Dr. G. p. Grimsby has been appointed to the chair ot 

 Geology and Natural History in Washburn University ; Dr. 

 W. B. Rankin and C. F. W. McClure have been appointed 

 to Professorships of Biology in the College of New Jersey ; Dr. 

 W. S. Strong has been called to the chair of Geology in Bates 

 College, Lewiston, Maine ; and Dr. R. de Girard, privat- 

 docent in Geology at the Ziirich Polytechnikum, has been 

 promoted to an Extraordinary Professorship, 



