March 5, 1896] 



NATURE 



429 



redetermined the composition of water by volume. By both 

 methods he reaches the same result : 0= I5"879, with variation 

 in the fourth decimal place as between the two. 



Dr. J. S. Billings and Dr. S. Weir Mitchell have completed 

 the investigations begim by them in 1893, under a grant from 

 the Hodgkins fund, to determine the nature of the peculiar 

 ubstances of organic origin contained in the air expired by 

 . iman beings. 



In their report the investigators state that for a number of 

 cars prior to 1888 the prevailing view among physicians and 

 initarians had been that the discomfort and dangers to health 

 iTid life which had been known to exist, sometimes at least, in 

 anventilated rooms occupied by a number of human beings were 

 largely or entirely due to peculiar organic matters contained in 

 air expired by these persons, and that the increase in carbonic 

 acid due to respiration had but little effect in producing these 

 Jesuits, its chief importance being that it furnished a convenient 

 means of determining the amount of vitiation of the air. 

 Recently, however, several experimenters have concluded that 

 the organic matters in the exhaled breath are not harmful, at 

 all events to animals, and the main object of the investigations 

 was to determine the correctness of these conclusions. 



The investigators found that the air in inhabited rooms, such 

 as the hospital ward in which experiments were made, is con- 

 taminated from many sources besides the expired air of the 

 occupants, and that the most important of these contaminations 

 are in the form of minute particles or dust, in which there are 

 micro-organisms, including some of the bacteria which produce 

 inflammation and suppuration. It is probable that these dust 

 particles were the only really dangerous elements in the air, 

 And it appears improbable that there is any peculiar volatile 

 poisonous matter in the air expired by healthy men and animals 

 •other than carbonic acid. 



In concluding their report the authors state that the results 

 of the investigations, takeri in connection with the results of 

 iher researches summarised in the report, indicate that some of 

 ic theories upon which modern systems of ventilation are based 

 ic either without foundation or are doubtful, and that the problem 

 ; securing comfort and health in inhabited rooms requires the 

 insideration of the best methods of preventing or disposing of 

 lists of various kinds, of properly regulating temperature and 

 loisture, and of preventing the entrance of poisonous gases like 

 iibonic oxide derived from heating and lighting apparatus, 

 1 1 her than upon simply diluting the air to a certain standard of 

 loportion of carbonic acid present. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Miss Helen M. Goui.d has presented a scholarship of 

 7000 dols. to Wellesley College. 



Mrs. S. V. Harkness, of New York City, has given 

 50,000 dols. to the Women's College of the Western Reserve 

 riii\ersity at Cleveland, Ohio, to establish a chair of biblical 

 literature. 



Mr. W. C. Fletcher, master at Bedford tirammar School, 

 has been appointed head master of the High School and 

 Commercial School of Liverpool Institute. 



A Parliamentary paper has just been issued containing a 

 Treasury minute to the effect that the grant to King's College, 

 '.ondon, which was suspended by the late Government owing 



■ the retention of denominational tests by the college, shall be 

 mtinued without any stipulation as regards tests. The college 

 A ill therefore receive, as from April i next, an annual sum of 

 /"1700 during the remainder of the term of five years, for which 

 period, beginning in 1894, the grant of ^15,000 a year to 

 university colleges in Great Britain was to be proposed to 

 Parliament. The other colleges are also to be informed that 

 the increase in their grants caused by the suspension of the 

 grant to King's College will not be continued beyond the end 

 of this month. 



It has been proposed in the Chamber of Deputies (says the 

 Paris correspondent of the British Medical fonrnal) that from 

 the unreclaimed sums of savings banks and other deposit sums 

 to the amount of ;^io,ooo should be paid to the different P'rench 

 laboratories, ^^"2600 tp the Pasteur Institute and to the labora- 

 tories of higher education in Paris, including the Val-de-Grace 

 Hospital laboratory and the Alfoirt^School of Xeterinarj' Medi- 

 cine, for the purpose of aiding resa|wA,es on contagious diseases, 

 ■ especially those in connection witK serums and vaccines ; 



NO. 1375. VOL. 53] 



;^50OO to the medical school laboratories of Lyons, Bordeaux, 

 Montpelier, Toulouse, Lille, and Nancy, likewise to the veteri- 

 nary schools of Lyons and Toulouse ; also for the purposes of 

 experimental research for contagious maladies, including the 

 further study of serums and vaccines ; and ;^2400 to the thera- 

 peutical, pharmacological, and medical chemistry laboratories of 

 the medical faculties and pharmaceutical schools to be devoted 

 to the study of the methods of treating contagious diseases, 

 likewise of the drugs. Every year reports of the work done at 

 these establishments are to be sent to the Minister of Public 

 Instruction. The Minister will afterwards send them either to 

 the Academy of Sciences or Academy of Medicine. 



The views with reference to training in scientific method, 

 which have been advocated with great persistence by Dr. H. E. 

 Armstrong for some years, are beginning to bear fruit. Mr. 

 A. B. Badger, in a scheme for technical education which he has 

 drawn up for the Carnarvonshire County Council, devotes a 

 section to pointing out the advantages of training in observing, 

 experimenting, and reasoning by practice in the methods of 

 science, and he urges the claims of such instruction to recogni- 

 tion. His remarks are so different from those of technical 

 advisers and organising secretaries of most of the County 

 Councils, that we are glad to quote them. "Throughout 

 life we are largely engaged in exercising the faculties with 

 a view to action. We ought, therefore, as early as possible, 

 to be trained to see things as they are, to compare facts 

 together, and to draw just conclusions; such training ought 

 to form part of the fundamental education of all. The highest 

 authorities are agreed that habits of observing accurately, 

 experimenting exactly and reasoning logically, are best 

 formed by practice in the methods of science. For years past 

 science has been taught in schools, but far too often the pupils 

 have only been lectured to and shown experiments, or if they 

 have done practical work, it has been a kind which required the 

 minimum of observation and deduction. Primarily, it is not 

 knowledge of the facts of chemistry, or physics, or mechanics, 

 which is wanted, but training in the methods by which these facts 

 were discovered, thus developing the faculties by which, in every 

 occupation of life, the facts necessar)- to it are ascertained, and 

 their relative values determined."' We trust that the suggestions 

 contained in Mr. Badger's carefully-constructed scheme will be 

 adopted by the Local Governors and Headmasters of the County 

 Schools, who will consider them in conjunction with the 

 Technical Education Committee of Carnarvonshire. 



Some of the tables which form the appendix to volume I. of 

 the Report of the late Royal Commission on Secondary Educa- 

 tion are of a most interesting and valuable nature. The first of 

 these sets forth the amounts appropriated and spent during the 

 financial year 1893-4 under the Local Taxation Act, 1890. We 

 find the amount available for educational purposes in the 

 counties was ;^595,838 i6i-. dd., of which ;;^44.8,I30 i7j-. \d. was 

 actually appropriated by the County Councils for this object, 

 though only ;iC396,i43 6j. 2d. was really spent. This sum was 

 disposed of as follows: — Grants to secondary schools, 

 ;ifi7,l68 17^. xcd. ; to scholarships and exhibitions, 

 ;if40,047 19X. (i\d. ; to evening continuation classes, 

 ;^I3,92I 14J. 10^. ; special classes for elementary teachers, 

 ;(f22,78i 9J. dd. ; technical and art schools and classes, 

 ;,^i9i,oii \y. ^\d. Of the last-mentioned amount no less than 

 ^134,578 \s. f)\d. went to "classes" of one sort and another. 

 The amount available for county boroughs was ;,^ 15 2, 2 24 ^s. 4d., 

 but owing to the accumulation of funds in the previous years the 

 amount appropriated reaches ;^i 58,687 Ss. In addition to 

 this, the sum of ^8,659 6s. lod. was raised under the Technical 

 Instruction Act. A consideration of the expenditure in the 

 boroughs brings forcibly under our attention the part that the 

 School Boards are allowed to take in the disposal of the funds, 

 for we find ^13,161 8^^. was placed in their hands to be dealt 

 with by them. Under the same headings as those used in speak- 

 ing of county expenditure we find ;^9.J90 i7->'- ^^- for secondary 

 schools ; ;f^5,444 9^'. lod. for scholarships and exhibitions ; 

 ^5,263 7^^. 6d. for evening continuation classes ; for technical 

 and art schools and classes the amount reaches ;^I02,I47 "js. 6d. 

 of which only ;(Ci9i645 S^- is spent on more or less detached 

 classes. While Preston devoted none of its share to the purposes 

 of education, and Northampton, Reading, and Great Yarmouth 

 only a part, Coventry, Hanley, Nottingham, Rochdale, 

 Sheffield, and Worcester, not only appropriated the whole of the 

 amounts allocated to them, but also levied rates under the 

 Technical Instruction Act. 



