January 15, 1903] 



NA TURE 



261 



Ross has been elected to the chair, and his title will be the Sir 

 Alfred Jones professor of tropical medicine. Dr. J. W. W. 

 Stephens has been elected to the Walter Myers lectureship in 

 tropical medicine. 



At the last meeting of the Lancaster Town Council, we 

 learn from the Lancaster Observer, a letter was read from Prof. 

 Percy Frankland, F. R.S., addressed to the principal of the 

 Storey Institute, in which he announces his intention of giving 

 tnthe Institute a sum of one hundred pounds to be devoted to 

 the purposes of a " Frankland Prize" for chemistry, whereby 

 the memory of his late father, Sir Edward Fr.mkland, may be 

 perpetuated in Lancaster, in which town he received his 

 education and spent the early years of his life. 



A new Technical College, the building of which has been 

 completed at a cost of about 50,000/., was opened at Wigan on 

 Monday. Mr. R. B. Haldane, K.C., M.P., delivered an 

 address, in which he said they had, through the enterprise of a 

 few public-spirited people, established an institution which 

 would take iis place in that great organic structure of the national 

 education which was slowly being built up. Referring to the 

 question whether charters should be given to establish teaching 

 universities in Manchester and Liverpool, Mr. Haldane said 

 he was quite sure that, if not in a few weeks, at least in a few 

 .years, they would see those great centres of academic learning 

 'n full force, with full distinction of university power and 

 stature. 



In November last, Prof. Schmidt accompanied the German 

 Emperor to England, and went to Oxford to investigate the 

 details of (he Rhodes scholarships. He has just reported the 

 results of his conference with the Oxford authorities to the 

 Kaiser. The Berlin correspondent of the Daily Mail reports 

 that in an interview Prof. Schmidt remarked : — " The German 

 Government unreservedly acknowledges the great value of the 

 Rhodes scholarships, and will do its utmost to assist German 

 students to avail themselves of them. You may state that the 

 prospects of our accepting the scholarships are altogether 

 lavourable. There are no fundamental difficulties whatever in the 

 way. Nothing but the difference between German and English 

 university requirements suggests possible obstacles, the pre- 

 paratory education of German students being so far in 

 advance.'' 



Ax the annual dinner of the Bristol University College Colston 

 Society on Tuesday, Sir J. Crichton Browne, who was the prin- 

 cipal guest, alluded to the subject of local universities. He said 

 objections to universities were futile in consideration of the 

 educational needs of the hour. What was wanted was not a 

 lot of provincial universities, but a group of national English 

 universities, which should collectively meet the higher educa- 

 tional wants of the country as a whole. Each university should 

 have instructive features of its own, each adapted to its environ- 

 ment, but all supplying the best instructions, the highest culture 

 and the finest discipline of the day. If Liverpool obtaino! the 

 charter it sought, they would inevitably have modern universities 

 in Manchester, Leeds, Durham, and Cardiff; and Bristol 

 should not be content to be left out in the cold. It seemed 

 inevitable that there would be a great extension of the university 

 system in England ; and there was no need to be afraid of 

 going too far lor some time to come, especially when one in 520 

 went now to Scotch universities, whereas only one in 5000 went 

 to universities in England. 



The development of higher education in the United States 

 continues rapidly. The registrar of Columbia University, Mr. 

 Rudolf Tombo, contributes to a recent number of Science certain 

 interesting university registration statistics which reveal that 

 the opening of each new academic year shows a marked ad- 

 vance over the last. The statistics are those of the beginning 

 of November of last year, and deal with eighteen of the leading 

 American universities. For the session preceding that with 

 which the statistics deal, the relative rank of the seventeen 

 leading universities on the basis of total enrolment was as 

 follows : — Harvard, Columbia, Michigan, Chicago, California, 

 Minnesota, Cornell, Wisconsin, Yale, Pennsylvania, North- 

 western, Indiana, Nebraska, Missouri, Princeton, Leland 

 Stanford and Johns Hopkins. If the students attending 

 courses for teachers are counted, the total number for Harvard 

 is 5468 and that for Columbia 5352. Chicago has had a con- 

 siderable increase of students, and in Mr. Tombo's table ranks 

 third, with 4296. Syracuse, which is included in the table for 



the first time, has a larger enrolment than Indiana. The teach- 

 ing staff at Harvard numbers 533, at Columbia 504 ; and at 

 the Johns Hopkins University, where the total number of 

 students is only 669, there are 147 teachers of different grades. 

 Indiana seems to have the smallest staff, viz. 65 teachers for 

 164S students. 



The Senate of the University of London has adopted a 

 scheme for the inspection of schools and for a school-leaving 

 examination in connection with which school-leaving certificates 

 will be awarded. The purpose of the scheme is to secure that 

 the new certificate shall admit the holder as a matriculated 

 student of the University without further examination at the 

 age of sixteen years, and that schools shall have freedom in 

 the selection of the subjects of study pursued by their pupils. 

 For pupils only able to attain the necessary standard in some, but 

 not all, of the subjects required for the school-leaving certificate, 

 their attainments will be set out on a school record. Oppor- 

 tunity will be afforded to the more capable pupils of obtaining 

 credit for advanced work. As the course of study pursued by a 

 pupil at school, his age, the period during which he has attended 

 school, the subjects in which he has reached the standard 

 required by the University, and also any form of manual, 

 artistic or technical skil will be set out on the record, it should 

 become a valuable testimonial to the pupil on entering life. In 

 order to maintain the same standard for the matriculation 

 examination and the school-leaving examination, the University 

 proposes to appoint a small board of inspectors, consisting of 

 persons of distinction and large teaching experience, who will- 

 act as moderators for the matriculation examination and be 

 responsible for maintaining the standard of the school-leaving 

 certificate. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 



Royal Society, November 20, 1902. — "On the Correla- 

 tion of the Mental and Physical Characters in Man." Part ii. 

 By Alice Lee, D.Sc, Marie A. Lewenz, B.A., and Karl 

 Pearson, F. R.S. 



In a second paper on this subject read before the Royal 

 Society, the following conclusions were reached : — 



In order to meet an objection raised at the discussion on the 



first paper, the correlations were found, for the Cambridge 



graduates, between 



, , ... , , length of head 



(1) Intelligence and the ratio — = — — , 



* stature 



breadth of head 



(2) Intelligence and the ratio 



both of these results came out even smaller than the correlations 

 of intelligence and absolute head measurements. 



The correlation between auricular height and intelligence in 

 school boys was found to be insensible- The statement made 

 by MM. Vaschide and Pelletier in the Comfles rendus that 

 there is a correlation in this case appears to be based on meagre 

 material and defective method. 



The correlations between intelligence and (1) strength of 

 pull, (2) strength of squeeze, (3) long sight are all negative, 

 that is, the honours men have less strength and shorter sight 

 than the pass men, but here again all these values are less than 

 the probable errors, and consequently no weight can really be 

 attached to them individually. 



The correlation between intelligence and weight is slightly 

 larger than the probable error. 



The correlations of intelligence with 



(1) The ratio 



(2) The ratio 



weight 



stature 

 weight 



(stature)- 



(3) The ratio wei S ht ., 

 -" (stature)- 5 



were found indirectly by formulne, and (1) was also found 

 directly; here again the results are of the same insignificant 

 character as when absolute weights are taken. 



Summing up the results ol the calculations based on the 

 Cambridge measurements, we come to the conclusion that the 



NO. 1733, VOL. 67] 



