July 4, 1901] 



NA TUBE 



245 



writes to the Times to point out that this measure is un- 

 satisfactory, for it presupposes that a local educational authority 

 to supersede the School Board is intended to be constituted, 

 and meanwhile entrusts the whole responsibility of main- 

 taining or destroying the higher elementary schools and continu- 

 ation schools to the county councils, which are not necessarily 

 conversant or in sympathy with them. These schools have 

 been created by the School Boards, and in the case of the 

 higher elementary schools the opportunities they give for scien- 

 tific study and intellectual culture are of the highest value to 

 national progress. What is required is a short Act of Parlia- 

 ment.vvhich would, for a year or two longer, leave the manage- 

 ment and development of these schools in their present hands 

 and provisionally legalise the needful expenditure from the rates. 

 This, Sir Joshua Fitch remarks, " would simply postpone 

 the controversial parts of the abandoned measure for the maturer 

 deliberation of next session, would provide a satisfactory escape 

 from the present impasse, and would, it may be hoped, en- 

 counter very little opposition." 



giving practical instruction in the use of nautical instruments and 

 in marine engineering. A building is being planned which will 

 afiford accommodation for marine engineering, naval architecture 

 and navigation, building construction, joiner's work, and plumb- 

 ing and metal-plate work, with a lecture theatre and class- 

 rooms. Practical classes will be conducted in electrical en- 

 gineering, especially in connection with ships' lighting. The 

 top floor will comprise a large room for nautical instruments and 

 a room for cartography and the exhibition of ships' models, a 

 chemical laboratory, a balance room, and a physical laboratory. 

 Connected with this floor will be a flat roof on which astro- 

 nomical observations may be made with such instruments as are 

 used on board ship, and it is probable that a small dome will be 

 provided for an equatorial telescope. 



The prospectus of the mining school at Camborne for the 

 session 1900-1901 tells the tale of some useful educational 

 work which is being carried on in Cornwall. The chief point, 

 and one for which Mr. W. Thomas, the mining lecturer, 



Mine Buildings of Camborne Mining School, Cornwall. 



Mr. J. PiERPONT Morgan has given a sum exceeding 

 1,000,000 dollars for the erection of three buildings for a Harvard 

 medical school. 



The first annual report of the Midland Agricultural and Dairy 

 Institute has been received. The Institute has absorbed the 

 agricultural department of the University College, Nottingham, 

 and now provides courses of instruction in agriculture on prac- 

 tical lines, and calculated to gain the confidence of practical 

 agriculturists. The work is carried on in conjunction with the 

 county councils of Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire 

 (Lindsey) and Nottinghamshire. In addition to courses of 

 instruction for farmers' sons, the Institute undertakes analyses 

 for farmers and conducts experiments of interest to agriculturists 

 at selected centres in the counties named. In a small way its 

 work is similar to that of an agricultural college and experiment 

 station in the United States, and every assistance should be 

 given to enable the work to be extended. 



The Technical Education Board of the London County Council 

 is making arrangements at the Poplar Technical Institute for 



NO. 1653, VOL. 64] 



deserves great credit, is the existence of a school mine ; that is 

 to say, the school is the owner of a tin mine which is worked 

 for educational purposes. Instead of being taught solely by 

 lectures, diagrams and models, the student has to work below 

 ground under the guidance of competent instructors. The 

 school is further equipped with good chemical and assaying 

 laboratories and a special room for teaching the useful Cornish 

 art of " vanning," besides having a large and airy drawing 

 ofHce, a library and a museum. Camborne is close to Dolcoath 

 and other large tin mines, so the student is not confined to the 

 school mine for the purposes of instruction. The fault of the 

 school lies in the fact of many of the lectures being delivered in 

 the evening. Admitting the desirability and necessity of 

 evening classes for young miners who are at work during the 

 day, it seems hard upon the outside student, who is ready to 

 pay full fees, that he should be made to attend lectures from 

 8 p.m. to 9 p.m., and even later. In the interests of the school 

 this should be changed, even if it necessitates two sets of 

 lectures. The accompanying illustration shows the drawing 

 office, with the mine ofiices behind it ; on the right-hand side 



