November io, 1904] 



JVA TURE 



35 



and the number of apprentices and young workmen 

 attending them has increased four-fold. 



The great success which the rapid growth of poly- 

 technics in different parts of London, since the form- 

 ation of the Technical Education Board in 1893, has 

 had in the development of evening instruction has 

 not, the report points out, been achieved at the expense 

 of other institutions; it represents a new growth, not 

 the transference of instruction from old to new institu- 

 tions. Many changes have taken place in the older 

 polytechnics to bring them more into touch with 

 modern requirements, and this has been accompanied 

 in nearly every case bv an increase in the volume of 

 instruction. Statistics have been compiled, with re- 

 gard to the attendances which have been made, from 

 1893 for a period extending over eight years. It has 

 been impossible to give particulars with regard to all 

 the 4000 classes in the numerous subjects of instruction 

 aided by the London County Council, but mechanical 

 engineering, electrical engineering, carpentry and 

 joinery, plumbing, other building trade classes, experi- 

 mental physics, chemistry, and mathematics have been 

 selected. The total volume of instruction in these sub- 

 jects, taken together, shows an increase from 118,732 

 student-hours in 1893 to 454,363 student-hours for 

 1900-1. Since then the number of artisan students 

 has been increasing steadily. The increase in the 

 amount of work done by the students, speaking 

 generally, appears to have been even greater than the 

 gTowth in numbers. \ growing proportion of the 

 students are now, it is satisfactory to find, taking 

 advantage of the systematic courses which have been 

 arranged, involving attendance on several evenings a 

 week ; and it is not surprising to find the Board re- 

 cording its belief that the educational value of the 

 work done in polytechnics, especially as regards the 

 young mechanic, has been in this way greatly 

 increased. 



As has been frequently pointed out, it was from the 

 first the policy of the Board to avail itself of the oppor- 

 tunity of aiding the supply of technical instruction 

 rather than of creating'a direct supply, wherever public 

 institutions have existed capable of responding to the 

 Board's aid by such developments of efficient technical 

 instruction as might be expected to meet the require- 

 ments of the district. It has been necessary, however, 

 to provide two classes of institution, for the conduct of 

 which the London County Council is wholly re- 

 sponsible, viz. : — 



(a) Institutions which provide instruction of such a 

 highly specialised character that it is necessary 

 for them to draw their students from the whole of 

 London ; for it has been impossible for any institution 

 with the ordinary sources of income to provide the 

 equipment and the highly specialised teachers 

 necessary. 



(V) Local institutions, providing instruction of a more 

 ordinary character in districts in which no public in- 

 stitutions under a responsible governing body existed 

 which could be utilised for the Council's requirements. 



There are many other subjects of interest included 

 in the report, and some of them have already been dealt 

 with from time to time in these columns. It must 

 suffice here, by way of conclusion, to mention briefly 

 the work the Board has accomplished in aiding and 

 extending satisfactory instruction in science in the 

 public secondary schools of London. Seventeen 

 chemical laboratories have been equipped in new build- 

 ings, generally in wings added to existing school 

 premises, and three rooms used for class purposes have 

 been converted into chemical laboratories. Four large 

 rooms have been fitted up for practical work in physics 

 and chemistry. Si.xteen physical laboratories have 

 been equipped in new buildings, and ten large class- 



NO. 1828, VOL. 71] 



rooms have been adapted for practical work in physics, 

 in addition to the four mentioned above, in which 

 practical work in chemistry is also carried on. Thus 

 fifty laboratories have been equipped in secondary 

 schools for boys, with bench accommodation for more 

 than 1200 pupils working simultaneously, or for 6000 

 pupils working one day a week. Twenty-five science 

 lecture-rooms have been provided, sixteen of these 

 being specially constructed for the purpose in new 

 buildings. .A large number of additional science 

 masters have been appointed as a result of the Board's 

 maintenance grants. In secondary schools for girls, 

 laboratories have in some cases been provided for 

 practical work in physics, chemistry, and botany, and 

 some of those in existence have been equipped suitably 

 to meet modern requirements. A. T. S. 



NOTES. 



The list of appointments on the occasion of His Majesty's 

 birthday includes the following honours conferred upon men 

 of science:— Mr. \V. H. M. Christie, C.B., F.R.S., has 

 been promoted to the rank of Knight Commander of the 

 Order of the Bath (K.C.B. Civil Division). Dr. J. W. 

 Swan, F.R.S., has received the honour of Knighthood. 

 The Hon. C. \. Parsons, F.R.S., has been appointed a 

 Companion of the Order of the Bath (C.B.). Mr. Francis 

 Watts, Director of .Agriculture in the Island of Antigua, and 

 analytical and agricultural chemist for the colony of the 

 Leeward Islands, has been made a Companion of the Order 

 of Saint Michael and Saint George (C.M.G.). 



The council of the Royal Society has made the following 

 award of medals for this year : — The Copley medal to Sir 

 William Crookes, F.R.S., for his long-continued researches 

 in spectroscopic chemistry, on electrical and mechanical 

 phenomena in highly rarefied gases, on radio-active pheno- 

 mena, and other subjects. The Rumford medal to Prof. 

 Ernest Rutherford, F.R.S., for his researches on radio- 

 activity, particularly for his discovery of the existence and 

 properties of the gaseous emanatilons from radio-active 

 bodies. .\ Royal medal to Colonel David Bruce. R..\.M.C., 

 F.R.S., for his researches in the pathology of Malta fever, 

 nagana, and sleeping sickness, and especially for his dis- 

 coveries as regards the exact causes of these diseases. A 

 Royal medal to Prof. William Burnside, F.R.S., for his 

 researches in mathematics, particularly in the theory of 

 groups. The Davy medal to Prof. William Henry Perkin, 

 jun., F.R.S., for his discoveries in organic chemistry. The 

 Darwin medal to Mr. William Bateson, F.R.S., for his 

 contribution to the theory of organic evolution by his re- 

 searches on variation and heredity. The Sylvester medal 

 to Prof. Georg Cantor for his researches in the theories of 

 aggregates and of sets of points of the arithmetic con- 

 tinuum, of transfinite numbers, and Fourier's series. The 

 Hughes medal to Dr. Joseph Wilson Swan for his invention 

 of the electric incandescent lamp and various improvements 

 in practical applications of electricity. 



The following is a list of fellows who have been recom- 

 mended by the president and council of the Royal Society 

 for election into the council for the year 1905, at the 

 anniversary meeting to be held on November 30 :^president. 

 Sir William Huggins, K.C.B., O.M. ; treasurer, Mr. A. B. 

 Kempe ; secretaries, Prof. J. Larmor, Sir Archibald Geikie ; 

 foreign secretary, Mr. F. Darwin. Other members of the 

 council : — Dr. Shelford Bidwell, Mr. G. A. Boulenger, 

 Colonel D. Bruce, R.A.M.C, Mr. F. W. Dyson, Prof. Percy 

 F. Frankland, Prof. F. Gotch, Dr. E. \V. Hobson, Prof. 



