276 



NATURE 



[July 23, 1903 



than they do at present to provide better training for 

 our industrial leaders. In London one may hope that 

 this may be effected by inducing certain institutions 

 to specialise in given directions. To take a case in 

 point, the buildings, equipment, and numerical size 

 of the staff of the Central Technical College might be 

 equal to dealing satisfactorily with one branch of 

 engineering or of applied chemistry. At present the 

 college undertakes nearly all branches, and does it 

 remarkably well, considering the difficulties under 

 which it labours. If all the teaching staff for higher 

 work in London were amalgamated, it would still 

 be inferior in quantity — and, probably, in quality for 

 specialised work — to that at Berlin ; but it would not 

 be, as is at present the case in the more or less isolated 

 institutions, far too small for the work it is trying 

 to do. 



In the provinces the problem is more difficult, but 

 not insoluble, if we are all more anxious for the good 

 of the nation than for the glory of our own town or 

 institution. Elementary technical education is needed 

 in all the towns, but technical colleges are wanted in 

 a few great cities only ; and even in these populous 

 centres every important branch of technology cannot 

 be taught with efficiency, because, for a long time, 

 there will be too few students to warrant adequate 

 expenditure. Why should Sheffield and Leeds, e.g. 

 both attempt the highest work in metallurgy and 

 mining? Might not Sheffield send, say, its mining 

 teachers and students to Leeds for higher work, and 

 Leeds return the compliment by helping to develop 

 the highest possible training in, say, metallurgy at 

 Sheffield ? 



The case mentioned is only one instance of a prin- 

 ciple which the Government ought to seek to establish 

 generally, and to induce local authorities to adopt by 

 offers of suitable grants in aid of what is really a 

 pressing national need, viz. the development and im- 

 provement of our higher technical training. Each of 

 the great cities might be made a centre for the highest 

 training for one or more of our national industries, 

 and the neighbouring cities should be willing to act 

 as feeders to it in respect of this higher work. 



Unless some such policy be adopted, there seems but 

 little chance that we shall ever be able to offer a train- 

 ing equal to that available in Germany. For it would 

 require enormous and wholly unnecessary expenditure 

 to develop into a first-class technical high school deal- 

 ing with many branches of technology, every technical 

 institution and university college which is at present 

 attempting to give some form of higher technical 

 training. 



Above all, let us note that both in Germany and 

 America the flourishing technical colleges are not, as 

 a rule, under the control of the universities, but exist 

 side by side with them as co-equal organisations with 

 different aims. To subordinate higher technical 

 education to ordinary academic control would be to 

 make a mistake which our German and American 

 cousins have carefully avoided. Technical institu- 

 tions might, however, very well become constituent 

 parts of a university, provided, as has, e.g. been 

 arranged at Sheffield, that they retain a sufficient 

 measure of self-government. The scheme of Prof. 

 Riedler, which Dr. Rose quotes with approval, would 

 be a very good basis upon which to make a division 

 between the work of our technical institutions and 

 university colleges which exist in the same area, and, 

 to some extent, overlap one another. 



The university college might embrace, as Riedler 

 proposes for the universities of Germany, the faculties 

 of law, theology, medicine, philosophy, languages, 

 history, State science, art, mathematics, and natural 

 science ; while the technical Institutions would on his 

 plan embrace the faculties of engineering, mining, 



NO. 1760, VOL. 68] 



forestry, agriculture, military science, and applied 

 chemistry. 



Finally, it may be well to quote the words in which 

 Dr. Rose summarises the results of his extensive 

 inquiries : — " The technical high schools cannot boast 

 of the proud traditions of the old universities, nor are- 

 their buildings and institutions regarded with those 

 feelings of gratitude and reverence which a long and 

 honourable career in the service of humanity naturally 

 inspires; but in default of this they can point to an 

 almost perfect organisation and equipment for modern, 

 requirements, and to a development within the last 

 forty years almost unparalleled in the annals of 

 educational history." May a similar statement be 

 possible ere long in regard to our own higher technical 

 institutions ! J. Wertheimer. 



A 



THE TENTH "EROS" CIRCULAR.' 

 S an example of needless duplication, fifty observ- 

 atories agreed to observe the planet Eros during 

 its opposition in 1900, but so far as known, only two- 

 or three have made the reductions needed to render 

 their observations of any value." So wrote Prof. E. C. 

 Pickering in April, in his " Plan for the Endow- 

 ment of Astronomical Research "; and he is not alone 

 in asking, directly or indirectly, when we may expect 

 to have the result of all the work done at the opposition 

 of 1900-1. The tenth Eros circular, dated June i, ap- 

 pears at the right moment as a provisional reply. It 

 gives the results of equatorial observations at twelve 

 observatories, all compared with the ephemeris ; and 

 two splendid series of photographic observations made 

 at Bordeaux and Paris, completely reduced so as to 

 show not only the comparison of the planet's place with 

 the ephemeris, but a series of places for individual stars 

 such as has never been given before. If these two 

 observatories had done nothing else in the two years 

 elapsed since the plates were taken, they might be con- 

 gratulated on a fine piece of work. Other results will 

 doubtless follow now that these are in print to act as 

 an incentive, and we need have no fears for the ultimate 

 result. 



It is, however, well to remember that the opposition 

 of Eros came upon us at a time when our hands were 

 already more than full with the ordinary work of the 

 astrographic catalogue. It was an embarrassing choice 

 whether to put aside the catalogue measures for a time^ 

 to finish them before undertaking the Eros work, 

 or to try to do both simultaneously. The various ob- 

 servatories have selected one or other of these alterna- 

 tives according to the stage which the catalogue work 

 had reached. At Bordeaux and Paris a leisurely pro- 

 gramme has been adopted for this work; the French 

 Government has supplied ample means, but the vote has 

 been spread over twenty-five years, and the work will 

 be extended over the same period. It would have been 

 ridiculous to defer the measurement of the Eros plates 

 for any period of this kind, and we imagine the cata- 

 logue work has been put aside In order to measure the 

 Eros plates. At Oxford, to take a different case, the 

 catalogue work has been pushed forward rapidly so as 

 to make the best use of the small sum available, and is 

 on the point of completion. The Eros work can then be 

 taken up without undue delay. At other observatories 

 some compromise has doubtless been adopted between 

 these extreme courses. So long as the work goes for- 

 ward on the lines of least resistance there is no par- 

 ticular need to be anxious ; and we welcome the appear- 

 ance of the tenth circular as an outward and visible 

 sign of the vitality of this research, which some were 

 beginning to accuse of hibernation. 



1 Conference Astrophotographique Internationale de Juillet 1900. Circa- 

 laire No. 10. Pp. 318 • Paris, 1903.) 



