6i6 



NATURE 



[October 20, 1904 



gratings can, I believe, be very much improved, as soon as 

 some better method of printing gratings is devised. I have 

 worked exclusively with chrom-gelatin, and it is by no 

 means easy to get a film of such uniform thickness that 

 the print made on it appears uniformly illuminated. 



During the past summer I made some experiments 

 with Prof. Lippmann. of Paris, on copying gratings by 

 means of the plates which he uses in his process of colour- 

 photography. These plates are much more sensitive than 

 chrom-gelatin plates, are orthochromatic, and yield gratings 

 of great brilliancy and uniformity. Whether they are 

 capable of receiving two or more impressions remains to 

 be seen. If they are it will probably be possible ta form 

 a diffraction colour-photograph directly in the camera, in 

 the manner suggested in one of my earlier papers. 



Moreover, if the triple ruling can be transferred in any 

 way to the Joly taking screen, it is obvious that the negative 

 taken by means of it in the camera will, when placed in 

 the viewing apparatus, appear as a positive in natural 

 colours ; w^e can thus obtain our coloured positive at once in 

 the camera, and make as many duplicates from it as we 

 please by contact printing. 



THE AGRICULTURAL EDUCATION CON- 

 FERENCE AT GLOUCESTER. 

 rjXDER the auspices of the Gloucestershire County 

 Council, a conference on agricultural education was 

 held at the Shire Hall, Gloucester, on October 15. There 

 was a large attendance not only of those locally interested 

 in either education or agriculture, but also of delegates 

 from many of the other counties. After a few- preliminary 

 remarks from the chairman, .Sir John Dorington, Lord 

 Onslow opened the proceedings, and explained the work his 

 department was charged with in regard to education. He 

 justified the retention of that w'ork by the Board of Agri- 

 culture instead of allowing it to be merged in the general 

 educational system administered by the Board of Education, 

 on the plea that agriculture in England was so far from 

 being the leading industry that the specialised education 

 it required would get scant attention were there not his 

 own department peculiarly interested in fostering it. He 

 claimed that the constant and sympathetic communication 

 between the two departments secured more favourable results 

 than could be acquired under the Board of Education 

 e.xclusively. The work of the Board of Agriculture was 

 confined to assisting the collegiate centres under which the 

 greater part of the country was now grouped ; there was, 

 however, a large blank on the educational map, for the 

 whole of the west country, including Gloucestershire itself, 

 had no centre of university rank from which agricultural 

 instruction emanated. He trusted that the present con- 

 ference would pave the way towards remedying the need 

 he had indicated. 



Sir William Hart-Dyke, to whom the first paper, on 

 higher agricultural education, had been entrusted, was un- 

 able to be present ; his paper, of which an abstract was 

 read, warned the meeting of the difficultv that now con- 

 fronted all counties in the matter of higher education because 

 of the great draft on their funds for the future training of 

 elementary schoolmasters. 



.•\ paper by Prof. .Middleton, of Cambridge University, 

 next dealt with the proper function of experimental plots 

 in local agricultural education ; Prof. Percival, of Reading, 

 who follow-ed, dealt with the ideal course of instruction Tn 

 an agricultural college. The current courses, he main- 

 tained, were far too scientific ; chemistry, botany and 

 kindred sciences should be reduced to a minimum in favour 

 of work on the farm, a thoroughly popular programme 

 which appealed to the " practical men " in the room. 



Lord Monteagle then opened the second part of the pro- 

 ceedings, on the education of the small farmer, with an 

 account of the way the Irish Board of Agriculture had gone 

 to work. 



In Ireland the central authority administered the larger 

 part of the funds, contributing five-ninths of the cost of 

 any work, and securing four-ninths from the local authority ; 

 thus the organisation proceeded more evenlv over the whole 

 country than in England, where the initiative rests with 

 NO. 1825, VOL. 70] 



the local authority. Next, they had proceeded in Ireland or 

 the principle of establishing no institution until they had 

 created a demand for it by means of pioneer lecturing 

 and demonstrations. Lastly, in Ireland they believed that 

 the industrial organisation of the farmers must go hand 

 in hand with their education. 



Prof. Wallace, of Edinburgh, who followed, dwelt on the 

 necessity of beginning an agricultural training nt an early 

 age, so far as practical work on the farm went, leaving the 

 true technical instruction to come when the lad had matured. 

 -Mr. Frederick \'erney also dwelt on the harm that w-as 

 being done to country children by keeping them at unsuit- 

 able school .subjects until they had lost all taste for farm- 

 ing pursuits ; the present system of elementary education 

 contributed both to the depopulation of the country and the 

 overcrowding of the towns. 



.Mr. H. Hobhouse, M.P., spoke on the value of attaching 

 agricultural sides to the ordinary country grammar schools ; 

 the training would not be technical, but scientific with an 

 agricultural bias. 



.\fter lunch Mr. Morant expressed his pleasure at the 

 opportunitv the conference afforded him of learning the 

 feelings of the great agricultural community towards the 

 educational system of the country. He assured the meeting 

 that the Board of Education was wholly anxious to assist, 

 provided the men who represented agriculture on such 

 occasions would make their views precise, and, instead, of 

 grumbling at large, would indicate exactly what worked 

 harshly or harmfully in the present arrangements controlled 

 by the Board of Education. 



A paper by Sir C. Dyke .Acland was then read in his 

 absence ; it dealt with the education of the labourer, and 

 was, like so many that followed, a plea for more intelligent 

 teaching in our elementary schools, and for a more flexible 

 system which would partially liberate boys at an earlier 

 age for light work on the farm. Mr. G. Lambert, M.P., 

 and Mr. Slartin F. Sutton emphasised this point of view, 

 and, like Mr. Acland, they agreed that in the main rural 

 labour difficulties had been caused by keeping the rate of 

 wages too low, with consequent loss of efficiency. 



The last section of the conference, on the education of the 

 teacher and expert, was opened by Mr. A. D. Hall, who 

 pleaded for a more rigorous training which should include 

 some experience in, farming for the teacher of agriculture, 

 and some work at research for the man who dealt with 

 agricultural science. Canon Steward, principal of the .Salis- 

 bury Training College, discussed more generally the educa- 

 tion of the elementarv schoolmaster and mistress in countrv 

 districts, and finally, Mr. R. P. Ward gave an account of 

 the way the teachers were being trained in Cheshire. 



In the discussion which followed most of the speakers 

 urged the substitution of winter schools or of evening con- 

 tinuation schools for the compulsory attendance of countrv 

 boys at school up to the age of fourteen : for farming 

 purposes a boy ought to begin light work on the farm at 

 the age of twelve at latest, though his education should go 

 on much later than it does now. 



The conference was noteworthy not only for the quality 

 of the papers read, but for the advance they showed in the 

 direction of organisation on those submitted to previous 

 conferences. It was made clear that there are several 

 different classes to be provided for; the large farmer's son 

 or future land agent wants a different equipment from that of 

 the small holder ; the farmer himself must be reached by an 

 entirely different method ; the labourer, again, has to be 

 treated separately. At Gloucester the various speakers de- 

 fined clearly their aim and their method ; in former gather- 

 ings of the same nature the speakers seemed to consider 

 there was only one kind of worker engaged in agriculture. 



THE SPREAD OF PLAGUED 



TN" accordance with our views on the origin of epidemics 



it is necessary to believe that the plague which appeared 



in Bombay in the autumn of 1896 was derived from some 



previously infected locality. Two such localities have been 



1 Substance of a paper read before the Section of Pbysioloey at the 

 Cambridge meeting of the British .\ssocialion on August 19 by Dr. E. H. 

 Hankin. 



I 



