66 



KNOWLEDGE. 



Febru.\ry, 1911. 



Saturn :- 



Saturn is gettir :;: r- to the West, but is observable 

 throughout the mcr.ch l\i 10 p.m. 



The planet is a ^c~' icuous object in the South-West portion 

 of the sky. and a" ■ .s in Pisces about ten de.^'rees South of 

 a Arietis. Obse:-. :j in the telescope, the ring appears open 

 fairly wide, =iriCC e are looking on the Southern surface at an 

 angle of 1. ". "The apparent diameters of the outer major and 

 minor a:..-; of the ring are 40" and 12" respectively, whilst the 

 diamel,-- of the ball is 16". In the telescope, in addition to the 

 ring, t!..' belts on the planet's disc — although not so conspicuous 

 as ti.ose on Jupiter — may easily be discerned. The Moon 

 aprars near the planet on the 5th. 



Uranus is a morning star, rising about 6.30 a.m. near the 

 middle of the month, and for all practical purposes is 

 unobservable. 



Neptune : — 



Neptune is situated in Gemini, about three-and-a-half 

 degrees South-East of the star 5 Geminorurn. The planet is 

 on the meridian about 9.40 p.m. near the middle of the month, 

 and is practically above the horizon the whole night through- 

 out the month. He is difficult to detect exxept in large 

 telescopes, but he may be identified in small telescopes by his 

 relative motion if successi\e observations are made some few 

 days apart. 



Meteor Showers: — 



Minimaof Algol occur on the 19th at 8.38 p.m.. and on the 

 22nd at 5.27 p.m. The period is 2'* 20"" 49"" from which data 

 other minima ni.H\' he calculated. 



Mira lo Cetil is due at miniiniun on February 26th. its 

 magnitude being about 8-5. 



Double Stars. — Castor, separation 5'-5, mags. 2-7, 3-7. 

 Excellent object for small telescopes. The bri,ghtest pair to 

 be observed in this country ; can always be relied upon as a 

 good show object. 



K Geminonim, separation 6"-j, mags. 4. 8-5 ; very pretty 

 double. 



fCancri, separation 0"'9, 5"-2, mags. 5-5, 6-5, 7-5; with 

 small telescopes the wider component is readily seen. 



" Draconis, separation 61"-7, mags. 4-6, 4-6 ; a pretty and 

 easy double; can be separated by observing with a pair of 

 opera glasses. 



Clusters. — M 44, the Praesepe in Cancer, visible to the 

 naked eye as a nebulous patch, best seen and easily resolvable 

 with a pair of opera or field glasses. On accoimt of the 

 scattered nature of the group the cluster effect is lost when 

 observed with a telescope unless very low powers be employed. 

 Situated about midway, and a little to the West of, the line 

 joining a and <> Cancri. 



THE .AS.SOCI.ATI()N Ol- PUBLIC .SCIIooL .SCIHX'CE M.A.STER.S 



.At a general meeting held at the Limdoii Day Training 

 College, on January 11th, Sir Kay Lankester, F.K.S., the 

 President of the Association of Public School Science Masters, 

 gave an address upon "' Compulsory Science versus Compul- 

 sory Greek." So far as his own experience went, he condemned 

 public schools. At the one which he himself attended, he 

 maintamed that he learnt nothing, though he was at the top of 

 his various forms, and finished as the head boy. He thought 

 that all the ptiblic schools should be day schools, that no 

 master should be allowed to keep a boarding-house, being paid 

 sufficiently well to make it umiecessary. and that only 

 the very ablest teachers should be employed. He urged 

 that the boy should have home surroundings, plenty of time 

 to himself, and a place in which he could work undisturbed. 

 Sir Kay Lankester brought many arguments to bear against 

 compulsory Greek, and among the strongest of these were the 

 following: — That althotigh Latin had in times gone by been a 

 necessity to the educated man. and was reijuired if the scientific 

 progress of the day was to be followed, the intention of learning 

 Greek was to be able to read the works of the Greek authors 

 in their own tongue. Many of the translations which exist 

 render this unnecessary, and as an answer to the contention 

 that Greek should be studied because classical men appreciated 

 the Greek ideals, a translation was given of Aristotle's descrip- 



tion of what constituted a good education. This coincided 

 almost exactly with what a scientific man would lay down to-day. 



In conclusion, a detailed scheme of work beginning with 

 what Sir Kay Lankester called Equipment Studies, was laid 

 down, and the way in which it could be carried out with efficiency 

 was outlined. .-Vmong the Equipment Studies were these, in 

 the order in which they were given: — English language, Latin, 

 French. German, and .Arithmetic. 



.After the Presidential address, Mr. .A. V'assall (Harrow) 

 dealt with the education of a medical student. He pointed 

 out some common misunderstandings with regard to the 

 powers and functions of the General Medical Council, and 

 thought that if there was a movement in favour of one central 

 qualifying body, the latter would probably be the Council in 

 question. "The .Association," he said, "must watch that this 

 does not happen without the Head-masters' Conference being 

 aware of it, otherwise, when it was too late, public schools 

 would find themselves biu'dened with yet one more syllabus 

 forced upon them as necessary for a good general education." 



(Jn the second da\- of the meeting, among the subjects down 

 for discussion were the teaching of English in connection 

 with science lessons, introduced by Mr. W. D. Eggar (Eton), 

 and the use of the wave theory and of rays in teaching light. 



