FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



713 



raised, and science would not be disgraced 

 from time to time by those who are willing 

 to trade on their scientific reputation. 



The Competiton Fetich in Education. 

 "The dying out of the distinguished school 

 of naturalists which this country once pro- 

 duced, and which culminated in Darwin, is a 

 fact which scarcely admits of dispute," says 

 W. T. Thiselton-Dyer in a recent article in 

 Nature. " English naturalists of the genera- 

 tion which is now passing away have belonged 

 to two groups. Some have been born to 

 wealth, some to poverty. Class prejudice was 

 against the one, means of livelihood against 

 the other. The richer disciples of our art 

 seem now to have gone irretrievably and to 

 have no successors. The poorer have changed 

 their tone. They tend to treat science as a 

 career like the civil service." Mr. Thiselton- 

 Dyer quotes a friend who believes the cause 

 of this degeneration in the ideals of scien- 

 tific workers to be due to the system of con- 

 stant competitive trials, which it seems, in 

 England as well as in the United States, per- 

 vades everything in the schools from Greek 

 to athletics, and which completely overshad- 

 ows the real reason and point for going to 

 school. "This remarkable system begins, 

 the masters of this and other schools told 

 me, at about eight years old. There is no 

 time to learn, to think, or observe. The 

 boys must beat some other school in tennis 

 or football, or must beat some one else in the 

 history of the Punic wars. . . . The great 

 object of education appears to be to have 

 every boy competing for something abso- 

 lutely useless to him in later life." This 

 latter, of course, is something of an over- 

 statement; but the indiscriminate encour- 

 agement of rivalry and subsidizing of the 

 winner, without reference to the value of 

 the knowledge which the success implies, 

 has been steadily at work in our universities 

 for some years, and has been one of the 

 principal factors in bringing the college 

 graduate into disrepute as an unpractical 

 and many times really ignorant man. He 

 quite loses his bearings when launched forth 

 on the actual sea of life, judges questions 

 from the limited standpoint of the local 

 horizon which his alma mater has provided 

 for him, and, worst of all, being a college 

 graduate, is rather inclined to be supercilious 



at any suggestion that perhaps there are a 

 few small scraps of knowledge which he is 

 not yet master of. There have, however, 

 quite recently been signs of reaction against 

 the competitive system at any rate, in ath- 

 letics and it is to be earnestly hoped that 

 this reaction will extend itself to the whole 

 curriculum. We may then, perhaps, expect 

 to see an educational system based on the 

 requirements of everyday life, and the gradu- 

 ates of our highest educational institutions 

 taking their full share in the business and 

 politics of the country. 



A Natural Botanical Garden. A some- 

 what curiously distributed flora is described 

 as existing in the island of Sakhalin, at the 

 northernmost end of the Japanese group. 

 Its geological structure resembles that of 

 Siberia much more nearly than that of Japan. 

 Volcanoes, which are such a characteristic 

 feature of Japan, are entirely wanting here, 

 and the three parallel chains of mountains 

 which form the backbone of the island are 

 composed of Jurassic slate, Cretaceous strata, 

 and Tertiary limestone, being similar in for- 

 mation to those of Siberia. The mountains 

 reach an average elevation of six thousand 

 to seven thousand feet, and this, combined 

 with the abnormal climatic conditions of 

 the island, give rise to a very varied vege- 

 table life. Although it lies between the lati- 

 tudes of Trieste and Hamburg, its conditions 

 of life are almost polar. Bathed by two 

 cold marine currents, it is exposed without 

 protection in winter to the cold northwest 

 winds of the east Siberian anticyclone, and 

 an abnormally cold winter as well as sum- 

 mer results. At sea level snow lies in open 

 sunny spots even in May. Snowfalls occur 

 to the end of May. Owing to the cold cur- 

 rents which surround the island, distance 

 from the coast plays an important part in 

 determining vegetable growth, and gives rise 

 to anomalies perhaps observable in no other 

 portion of the earth's surface. In Siberia 

 and in central Europe it has many times 

 been noticed that during the winter cold the 

 mountain summits are much warmer than 

 the plains. The same is true in Sakhalin, 

 The cold and heavy winter's air collects in 

 the lower regions, while above the mountain 

 heights enjoy the warmer sea breeze. But 

 even in summer, owing to the cold ocean 



