204 



NA TURE 



[December :8, J89; 



sent use, especially when we remember that County 

 ■Councils can, if they please, levy a rate iri addition to the 

 Imperial grant. We shall agree with Dr. Gull, of the 

 Grocers Company's School, that the battle of scientific 

 and technical training versus the humanities ought to be 

 decided by evolution and natural selection, rather than by 

 authority ; though what this latter exactly means I do not 

 quite understand. Authority can only act when evolution 

 :^rd natural selection — in other words, public opinion — 

 has decided what is wanted. But we shall disagree with 

 him when he says that "no time could be worse than 

 the present for settling this question." We say that no 

 time can be better, or rather that no time can be so good 

 as the present ; for if we do not settle the question soon 

 it will be too late, and our people will lag so far behind 

 those of other countries, that we shall not be able to 

 fetch up our lee way, and the victory will not be to us. 

 To my mind much nonsense is talked, especially by 

 those whom I may without offence call the high-faluting 

 educationists, about so-called culture, and of the neces- 

 sity for the study of grammar and the humanities for chil- 

 dren of every degree. Mr. Bowden, President of the 

 Union of Teachers, is not one of these. He calls atten- 

 tion to the fact — deplorable enough — that only about five 

 per cent, of our five million of children on the registers of 

 •elementary schools are in the sixth standard. This being 

 so, it is our duty to give these few children whose parents 

 are willing and able to let them pass on to a higher level 

 of education in secondary schools, that which will most 

 effectively fit them for the life which they afterwards 

 have to follow. Ours is essentially an industrial popula- 

 tion, and as the Duke of Devonshire said, at another 

 conference on the same subject, " any advance in the 

 direction of utilising existing secondary schools must be 

 made not for the benefit of the middle classes only, but also 

 of the whole of the working-class community of this 

 country"; and to this I may add Mr. McCarthy's axiom, 

 that school machinery which makes for clerkly employ- 

 ment at the expense of the skilled handicrafts, is so far 

 harmful. Still, it is mainly our middle-class education 

 which is in chaos and needs reform. The higher 

 secondary education is probably sufficiently provided for 

 by over loo so-called " public " schools having a total of 

 from 26,000 to 27,000 pupils. Primary education is under 

 State direction, and will improv^e from year to year. To 

 amend the middle-class education is more important 

 even than to improve the educational ladder. Mr. 

 Llewellyn Smith's most excellent report on the condition 

 of secondary education in London shows how crying is 

 the necessity in the metropolis for such middle-class 

 schools. The few that exist in the kingdom are often 

 insufficiently endowed, and their work is generally ham- 

 pered by competition with private venture schools ; and 

 how bad the education is, which is given in many of these 

 middle-class private schools, can, as Dr. Gull says, hardly 

 be conceived. These inefficient schools must be either 

 mended or ended before we can make much progress, 

 and for this we need a Registration of Teachers Act, and 

 an effective system of inspection. Honest private 

 schools would benefit, and the others would disappear. 



Of all the communications made concerning the re- 

 lations present and prospective of the universities to the 

 secondary education of the country, the letters read by 

 Prof. Jebb, from the late Master of Balliol, are of the 

 greatest interest, as giving the latest opinions of one who 

 throughout his life was an educational, and especially a 

 university, reformer. Dr. Jowett stated his desire that 

 there should be a universal abiturienten examination, 

 giving the right of admission to the universities. Then 

 he wished to give all students who pass such an 

 examination the right of becoming candidates, without 

 residence or restriction of age, for any university 

 examination, with or without honours, or for any part of 

 the examination. He further remarks that such persons 



NO. 1 261, VOL. 49] 



should have the privilege of admission to the libraries, 

 of competing for university certificates and prizes without 

 restriction of age. Moreover, he would give to such 

 candidates as have shown any considerable merit, sums of 

 money to enable them to carry on their inquiries ; and 

 this, says Prof. Jebb, was intended by Dr. Jowett to apply 

 to all branches of knowledge without distinction, which 

 the universities could best teach. These are indeed 

 truly radical proposals, for they mean throwing open the 

 university honours and emoluments to the world. That 

 such measures should have been suggested in the almost 

 dying words of the greatest master of the greatest of 

 Oxford colleges, is in itself remarkable evidence of the 

 present position of Oxford opinion. If fifty, or perhaps 

 twenty, years ago, a radical undergraduate were to have 

 made such suggestions, he would have stood a chance of 

 being expelled from the university, like Shelley, for 

 blasphemy ; now they are the last words of Jowett, quoted 

 in the presence of the Vice-Chancellor, with approval by 

 Jebb. H. E. RoscoE. 



THE SONNE LICK MOUNTAIN OBSERVA- 

 TORY. 



T^HE progress of meteorological science having ren- 

 -*- dered necessary a more careful investigation of 

 the conditions of the higher strata of the atmosphere, 

 the subject of mountain stations was considered at the 

 Meteorological Congress at Rome, in 1879, and the 

 various problems which could best be solved by such 

 observations or in balloons were discussed. Among 

 these may be mentioned : — The decrease of temperature 

 with height, especially during cyclones and anticyclones ; 

 terrestrial and solar radiation ; the behaviour of baro- 

 metric maxima and minima at the earth's surface and at 

 great heights, and the increase of wind velocity with 

 height. Several important stations were already in 

 existence, and the establishment of others was strongly 

 recommended. Herr Ignaz Rojacher, the proprietor of 

 the Rauris gold mines, having proposed to the Committee 

 of the German and Austrian Alpine Club, in the year 

 1884, the erection of a meteorological station at the 

 Miners' House on the Sonnblick, in the province of Salz- 

 burg, situated at an elevation of 7550 feet, about half- 

 way between Kolm-Saigurn and the summit of the Sonn- 

 blick, Dr. Hann, director of the Austrian Meteorological 

 Service, gladly took advantage of the suggestion, and in 

 December of that year the station was equipped by the 

 Austrian Meteorological Institute. But it was soon 

 found that the site was unfavourable for the purpose, and 

 Herr Rojacher decided that the only suitable position 

 would be the summit of the mountain. After surmount- 

 ing many difficulties, the work was satisfactorily carried 

 out in the early part of 1886. The Alpine Club under- 

 took the expense of the erection of a wooden house, 

 while the Austrian Meteorological Society provided the 

 self-recording instruments and undertook the building 

 of a substantial tower for the anemometer and the 

 establishment of telephonic communication between the 

 summit and Rauris, a distance of 1 5^ miles, and, further, to 

 supply instruments to the base station at Kolm-Saigurn. 

 The accompanying illustration shows the position of the 

 Observatory on the peak of the mountain ; it is situated 

 at a height of about 10,150 feet, and is the highest station 

 in Europe. The difficulties of dragging the materials 

 for the construction of the Observatory over glacier and 

 snow for a distance of about 900 yards can hardly be 

 overrated. Each trip occupied from three to four hours, 

 and it was at this stage of the work that the greatest 

 assistance was given by Herr Rojacher and his men. 

 His intimate knowledge of the conditions of the glacier 

 and neve, obtained from thirty-five years' residence in 

 the neighbourhood, enabled him to select a favourable 



