February 20, 1896] 



NA TURE 



381 



Cambridge. — Mr. J. E. Marr, F.R.S., Fellow of St. John's 

 College, has been reappointed University Lecturer in Geology 

 for five years. 



The Council of the Senate propose to submit a grace for the 



aiipointment of a syndicate to consider what further rights or 



privileges (if any) should be granted to women students by the 



I iiiversity, and in particular whether they should be admissible 



degrees. 



Phe Special Board for Biology propose that the arrangement 

 subsisting for the last twenty years between the University and the 

 Zoological Station at Naples should be renewed for a further 

 period of five years. This arrangement secures for University 

 students the use of a table in the laboratory and facilities for 

 research, in consideration of an animal payment to Dr. Dohrn 

 of ^100 from the Worts Travelling Scholars Fund. 



The Board of Agriculture has made a grant of £,()SO to the 

 Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College. The same 

 amount was granted to the College last year. 



In Paris the Societe de Topographie is making an efiFort to 

 establish topography as an ordinary subject of instruction, and 

 has published a circular and syllabus for the purpose. 



The Russian Government has, says the British Medical 

 loiintal, assigned an annual grant, equivalent to about ;i{^io,ooo, 

 to the Medical School for Women in St. Petersburg. The city 

 undertakes to provide ^2400, and private munificence has raised 

 an endowment fund of 2^70,ooo. Preliminary courses are already 

 being given. 



The following are among recent appointments abroad : Dr. 

 Eigenbrodt to be Extraordinary Professor of Surgery at Leipzig ; 

 Dr. Lenhossek to be Extraordinary Professor of Anatomy at 

 Tubingen ; Dr. M. Valsilieff to be Extraordinary Professor of 

 Theoretical Surgery at Warsaw ; Dr. Eliza M. Mosher to be 

 I'rofessor of Hygiene in the University of Michigan. 



The following announcements are made in Science: — Mr. 



-eph Bannigan has given 4000 dols. to the Catholic University 

 .1 America, and has made known his intention to donate for 

 iwelve years 4000 dols. a year for library purposes. By the will 

 of the late Mrs. Doyon, the University of Wisconsin has received 

 5000 dols. , the income of which is to be devoted to scholarships 

 for young women. Two scholarships of 2000 dols. each have 

 been presented to Tufts College, one by Mrs. A. B. Perkins, and 

 the other by J. S. and H. N. White. 



The disasters of the late war seem to be teaching the Chinese 

 that the traditional attitude of distrust and exclusion of Western 

 civilisation cannot any longer be safely maintained. It may be 

 taken as a sign of the times that the Vice-Regent of Tientsin 

 has entertained a proposal to start a university upon the 

 European model. The university is particularly intended 

 to foster the technical sciences, and will be connected with 

 a preparatory school. Mr. Charles D. Jenney will under- 

 take Us direction, and the staff will be partly composed of 

 foreigners. The autumn of this year is to see the opening of the 

 school and university. 



The Apprentices' Institution has recently instituted inquiries 

 among a large number of trade societies and workmen's clubs 

 with a view to ascertaining the opinion of working men them- 

 selves upon the apprenticeship system. From the standpoint 

 of the advocates of technical education, the results of their 

 enquiry are very satisfactory. A unanimous affirmative was 

 L^iven by all the trades to the questions — Is your Society of 

 opinion that instruction for a number of years in the workshop 

 is essential to the trained mechanic ? But especially valuable 

 and significant is the emphatic " No " to the question — Is your 

 Society of opinion that the instruction afforded in the technical 

 schools is sufficient training for a skilled mechanic with appren- 

 ticeship? Asked what they think, whether the instruction in 

 technical schools should be given during apprenticeship or 

 liefore it, the answer was in the large majority of cases " during 

 apprenticeship." Putting side by side with this the remark of 

 Mr. Reynolds, of Manchester, the Chairman of the Directors, 

 and Organising Secretaries for Technical and Secondary Educa- 

 tion, at their recent meeting, that the great difficulty the 

 technical schools had to contend with was the want of pre- 

 paration exhibited by the pupils who present themselves for 

 instruction in the technical schools, it becomes abundantly 

 manifest what policy ought to be pursued by the Technical 

 Instruction Committees throughout the country. 



NO. 1373. VOL. 53] 



As we recorded in our issue of February 14, 1895, the County 

 Council of Hampshire resolved to devote ;^6ooo of the surplus 

 of the funds available for technical education during the pre- 

 ceding year to general purposes in the county. It would seem 

 that they are not to be deterred from their retrograde policy by 

 the unanimous protests of the various educational papers, for at 

 the quarterly meeting of the Council, held on the lOth inst., a 

 motion was proposed by the Chairman of the Finance Com- 

 mittee — "That the Finance and Technical Education Committees 

 be instructed to meet together and report to the meeting in May 

 1896, their opinion upon the manner in which the balance re- 

 maining after the annual expenditure on technical education has 

 been defrayed, shall be dealt with." It appears that, notwithstand- 

 ing the transfer of ;^6ooo from the technical education account 

 towards the cost of the county buildings, up to December 31 last, 

 and taking the estimate to the end of March next, there would 

 be a balance of /^i2,ocxi. Though the Chairman of the Tech- 

 nical Instruction Committee assured the Council ther^was no 

 prospect of having a large balance to deal with in the future, 

 evidently meaning that the Committee had every need of this 

 money which they were reserving, the motion was put and 

 carried. It would be supposed from an action such as this, that 

 Hampshire is already well supplied with every kind of secondary 

 education ; but is it so ? At Southampton, which it is true 

 receives its share of the whole grant, there are at least two 

 institutions which are in want of assistance. The Hartley 

 Institution, which receives a county grant of only ^^75 per 

 annum, is badly crippled for want of funds. The Grammar 

 School similarly is greatly in want of help to develop the tech- 

 nical side of its work, and the same condition of things is true 

 in many other of the local centres. In addition to all this, one 

 hears repeatedly of the urgent need of Schools of Forestry in 

 this country, and yet Hampshire, with the New Forest in 

 its midst, has ;^i 2,000 for which it has no educational use ! 



Particulars are tabulated in the Technical Education 

 Gazette of the principal scholarships which are awarded in 

 London, giving free education or education at reduced fees — 

 (l) at the public secondary schools ; (2) at universities, univer- 

 sity colleges, polytechnics, technical institutes, and other places 

 of higher education ; (3) at schools of art. The tables are 

 intended to give some idea as to the opportunities that are 

 offered to the inhabitants of London of obtaining education 

 above the elementary grade, either entirely free or at greatly 

 reduced cost. The total number of scholarships tenable at 

 public secondary schools appear to be as follows : Boys — 1240 

 per annum (of which all except 85 may be regarded as actually 

 available for pupils in public elementary schools). Girls — 543 

 per annum (of which all except 8 may be regarded as actually 

 available for pupils in public elementary schools). Total — 1783 

 per annum (of which as many as 1690 are actually available for 

 pupils in public elementary schools). Taking the average 

 number in attendance in public elementary schools (exclusive of 

 infants) as 382,121, it is found that the number of scholarships 

 available per 1000 children in attendance is 4*4, of which 1-5 

 per 1000 children are provided by the Technical Education 

 Board of the London County Council. The majority of the 

 scholarships tenable at universities, university colleges, poly- 

 technics, and similar institutions, are restricted as regards the 

 school previously attended, but unrestricted so far as residence 

 is concerned, though some are confined to residents within the 

 county of London. No notice is taken of the numerous scholar- 

 ships and exhibitions offered by university authorities outside 

 London, such as the colleges of Oxford or Cambridge, but an 

 attempt is made to show the facilities for acquiring training of 

 a university type offered to pupils who are educated or who 

 reside in London. The table shows that the scholarships avail- 

 able in London for giving training of a university type are as 

 follows : open to young men only, 240 ; open to young men or 

 young women, 120; open to young women only, 40; making 

 a total of 400. These scholarships do not include, however, 

 those that are specially awarded by the City Companies. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 



American Journal of Mathematics, vol. xviii. No. i, January, 

 1896. — " Sur la reduction a sa forme canonique de la structure 

 d'un groupe de transformations fini et continu," by E. Cartan. 

 This memoir occupies 61 pages. We state the most important 

 results in the writer's own words : "■ On peut toujours par des 



