22 
NATURE 
[NOVEMBER 5, 1903 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
CampripGe.—Mr. T. H. Havelock, Smith’s prizeman 
and Isaac Newton student in astronomy and astronomical 
physics, 1902, was on November 2 elected to a fellowship 
at St. John’s College. ; 
Mr. J. M. Dodds, Peterhouse, has been appointed chair- 
man of the examiners for the mathematical tripos. 
The university contribution from the incomes of the 
colleges has been fixed for the year at 125 per cent. This 
will yield the sum of 28,076/. to the common university 
fund. 
The council of the Senate has proposed that a syndicate 
be appointed to consider whether it is expedient to make 
any changes in the present system of studies, teaching, and 
examinations of the university. It has been urged, it is 
said by His Grace the Chancellor; that some changes are 
desirable, especially as regards modifications of the require- 
ments concerning the classical languages, and enlargement 
of the range of modern subjects. The reorganisation of 
secondary education throughout the country, and recent de- 
velopments in other universities, have made the inquiry 
more than ever desirable. 
In small schools with limited accommodation, where in- 
struction is given in both chemistry and physics, it is almost 
impossible to have separate laboratories for practical in- 
struction in these subjects. Messrs. F. E. Becker and Co., 
of Hatton Wall, London, are manufacturing a combined 
bench for chemical and physical experimental work which 
succeeds in overcoming this difficulty. When the benches 
are required for a chemistry class there are shelves for 
bottles of reagents on much the same plan as in ordinary 
chemical laboratories, but when the benches are to be used 
for practical physics, the shelves and reagents can be safely 
lowered bodily until they are below the surface of the 
bench. The lowering is effected by weights, heavier than 
the shelves and their contents, attached to sash cords 
running over pulleys. This plan is a decided improvement 
upon the attempt to make the reagent shelves of such a 
pattern that they may be lifted when the benches are re- 
quired by students of physics. 
A course of eight lectures on the fossil reptiles of South 
Africa was commenced by Prof. H. G. Seeley, F.R.S., at 
King’s College, Strand, on Tuesday, and will be delivered 
on alternate Tuesdays until February 23, 1904. The 
lectures are addressed to advanced students of the University 
of London and others interested in zoology and palzonto- 
logy, and to persons specially interested in the South 
African colonies. There is no fee for the course; cards of 
admission may be obtained on application to the academic 
registrar of the university. Other courses of special lectures 
in advanced zoology have been arranged, including the 
following, to be delivered next year :—Prof. E. A. Minchin, 
““Sporozoa’’; Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell, ‘‘ The Structure 
and Classification of Birds’’; Dr. C. W. Andrews, ‘‘ The 
Fossil Vertebrates of Egypt and their Relations with those 
of other Regions’’; Prof. H. G. Seeley, F.R.S., ‘‘ The 
Forms of the Skull in the Extinct Reptilia’’ and ‘‘ The 
Limbs and Arches which Support them in some Extinct 
Vertebrata.’’ 
Tue Chester Society of Natural Science, Literature and 
Art, which now numbers more than a thousand members, 
rheld its thirty-second annual conversazione on October 22, 
when the Kingsley memorial prizes for nature-study offered 
for competition by the Chester Society were presented by 
the Duchess of Westminster. These prizes, of the value 
of a guinea each, are offered to boys and girls residing in 
Cheshire and North Wales, and this year the subjects 
selected for the competition were :—the life-history and 
habits of the common house sparrow; the collection of 
dried and mounted specimens of British grasses; the 
physical geography and natural features of the district in 
which the competitor resides; and a descriptive list of 
insects which are injurious to plants in the district in 
which the competitor resides. So far as practicable, the 
list of insects was to be accompanied by actual specimens of 
the insects tabulated. This plan, which the Chester Society 
of Natural Science has found successful in developing an 
NO. 1775, VOL. 69] 
interest in “nature-study in the schools of Cheshire and 
North Wales, might with advantage be adopted by field 
clubs and natural history societies in other parts of the 
country. 
At Liverpool on October 31 Lord Londonderry opened a 
new wing erected in connection with Edge Hill Training 
College at a cost of 11,800/. Lord Londonderry, in the 
course of his address, said the universities were under- 
taking new and remarkable phases of work. Liverpool, 
Manchester, and Birmingham, which twenty years ago 
could not stand alone, were now eager for independence, 
and were anxious to discharge in their own way the duties 
of higher education. To be successful we must have an 
education system second to none. We had a considerable 
amount of leeway to make up, because we had not at the 
present time the advantages which were enjoyed by other 
countries in regard to this question. He wished it were 
possible that they could at once take the steps necessary to 
compete successfully and in friendly rivalry with other 
countries, but he trusted the day was not far distant when 
that might be done. It was the work of colleges which 
might induce the country at some future date to devote a 
sum of money annually to assist picked men and women 
engaged in research studies thoroughly to complete their 
education. He must not, however, be understood to be 
making any pledge that he had any such prospect in view. 
Tue classes at the Northern Polytechnic have for the last 
few years been greatly crowded, especially in physics, 
chemistry, and some of the trade subjects. To provide the 
necessary accommodation a large new wing has been con- 
structed, to which the physics department has been trans- 
ferred. This is now provided, amongst others, with three 
large laboratories, two of them 50 feet by 30 feet, and a 
lecture room that will seat about 100. On the top floor, 
in addition to the accommodation for chemistry already 
existing, are now added a large elementary laboratory, a 
laboratory specially fitted for honours students and research 
work, as well as a balance, a lecture room, and a fire-proof 
room. The new wing also contains a drawing office 
50 feet by 30 feet, and four trade shops, for plasterers, 
masons, bricklayers, and painters respectively. The cost 
of this wing, with its equipment, has amounted to about 
16,0001. The chemical laboratories, drawing office, and 
several trade shops are lighted by ‘‘ inverted arcs,’’ that is, 
by the light reflected from the ceiling only, upon which the 
arc lamps are caused to shine. The result is a light so 
diffused as to be almost shadowless, and therefore an ex- 
ceedingly pleasant light for mechanical drawing and such 
things as masonry, in which there may be a lot of under- 
cut work, which an ordinary light would make difficult. 
This wing was formally opened on Wednesday, October 28, 
by Lord Londonderry. Sir Arthur Riicker, Mr. Sydney 
Webb, and Sir Joseph Savory were among the speakers. 
Tue second article by a special Times correspondent on 
the work of the Mosely Educational Commission, published 
in the issue for October 28, contains several useful and 
suggestive expressions of opinion as to certain of the causes 
for the greater educational enthusiasm in the United States 
as compared with that in this country. The article states 
that ‘‘in England every penny spent on education is too 
often grudged; in America there is no public expenditure 
that seems to meet with more universal approval.” 
Perhaps, the article continues, it is this belief in education for 
its own sake that has saved America from the whole system 
of examinations, scholarships, and prizes, under which 
English education groans. In our elementary schools the 
examination fiend has been partly exorcised, with the result 
that at this moment elementary education in England is in 
a healthier and freer condition than that of the secondary 
schools and universities. There, where education ought 
above all to be free to develop itself in the best methods 
and from the highest motives, the case is notoriously the 
reverse. From the time he enters a preparatory school until 
he leaves the university, an English boy imbibes the idea 
that the principal object of study is to pass examinations. 
Teachers must repress individuality of treatment, and with 
one eye on the nearest impending examination must think 
less of. educating their pupils than of cramming them. 
Secondary schoolmasters dare not travel outside the require- 
