NATURE 
344 [FEBRUARY II, 1904 
Coloured Haze around the Moon, The report now presented to the London County 
Att last night there was a very strongly marked | Council recognises the preparation of a scheme for the 
circular space of hazy reddish colour about the moon of 
about 20° radius; towards morning (2 to 4 a.m.) the colour 
Was most pronounced. 
The weather was very fine all night, the temperature 
being about 20° F. and the humidity from 30 to 4o per 
cent. There was very little haze in the lower atmo- 
sphere, the snow on the hill-tops being silvery white to the 
verge of the horizon, about 50 miles distant. Immediately 
above the horizon to S.W. there was, at 3 and 4 a.m., a 
belt of dark copper-coloured sky, the upper edge of which 
(at 3 a.m.) just touched the lowest part of the coloured 
space round the moon. 
moon at times, and on this part of a halo was faintly 
marked at 2 and 3 a.m. At 4 a.m. filmy cirro-stratus 
radiating from the south was more general, and the halo 
was almost complete. The above phenomenon, however, 
seemed quite different from the ordinary cirrus haze, and 
so far as could be observed had no trace of either halo or 
corona connected with it. AnGus RANKIN. 
Ben Nevis Observatory, February 1. 
THE NEW EDUCATION AUTHORITY FOR 
LONDON. 
BY the provisions of the Education (London) Act, 
1903, which comes into operation on May 1 next, 
the control of the education of London becomes a duty 
of the London County Council. After that date educa- 
tion in London is to be administered as an organic 
whole and is no longer to consist of separate, unrelated 
parts. In place of the London School Board adminis- 
tering the elementary education given in schools pro- 
vided by the ratepayers, the London Technical Educa- 
tion Board regulating the instruction given in accord- 
ance with the Technical Instruction Acts, and the 
governing bodies supervising the work of various 
grades of secondary schools for boys and girls, the Lon- 
don County Council becomes the authority for the 
whole of London’s education—elementary, secondary, 
technical and higher. 
The Act which brings about this complete and 
momentous change enacts that the Council shall! | 
establish an education committee in accordance with a | 
scheme made by the Council and approved by the 
Board of Education. 
the London County Council. on November to last, re- 
ferred the Education (London) Act, 1903, to its General 
Purposes Committee to advise as to the practical steps 
to be taken for the administration of the Act. This 
committee reported to the Council at its meeting held 
on January 26, and the report, containing suggestions | 
as to the constitution of the Education Committee 
which were adopted by a large majority of the Council, 
deserves the earnest attention of all who have at heart 
the educational welfare of the metropolis. 
Before considering the result at which the Council 
has arrived, it is desirable to recall that the Act of 1903 
was intended to adapt the Education Act of 1902 to the 
particular needs of London. In detailing the methods 
to be followed in appointing an education committee, 
the earlier Act directs county councils to provide for 
the appointment by the council, on the nomination, 
where it appears desirable, of other bodies, of persons 
of experience in education, and of persons acquainted 
with the needs of the various kinds of schools in the 
area for which the council acts. It may be remarked 
that of 271 schemes approved by the Board of Educa- 
tion, some two-thirds provide for such co-opted members 
with expert knowledge. County councils are also 
directed to include women as well as men among mem- 
bers of the committee. But the number of members to 
constitute the committee is left to the discretion of the 
council. 
NO. 1789. VOL. 60] 
Chiefly with this object in view | 
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Education Committee as the chief duty which falls to 
the Council under the new Act, and the General Pur- 
poses Committee seems to have considered with due 
care, if not with complete understanding, schemes 
adopted in various local areas throughout the country, 
the model set them by the constitution of the London 
Technical Education Board, and the duties to be per- 
formed by the new Education Committee. The result 
of their deliberation has been strongly to ‘‘ advise the 
| Council to place two objects before it in constituting 
There was some cirrus about the | 
the Education Committee—(1) that the committee shall 
be one which will work harmoniously with the Council 
in developing a complete and well co-ordinated system 
of London education ; and (2) that its constitution shall 
be such as to retain one of the greatest public interests 
under real public control as far as possible.’’? With 
these objects little fault can be found, and it should 
have been possible to ensure both these ends and yet 
to have secured the assistance of co-opted members with 
special knowledge of the needs of every grade of edu- 
cation in London from the primary school to the uni- 
versity. Yet the report continues: ‘‘ We propose that 
the committee shall consist of thirty-five members of 
the Council, with the chairman, vice-chairman and 
deputy-chairman, and that in accordance with the pro- 
vision of the Act five women should be added, to be 
chosen for their experience in education. We think 
that the committee would be strengthened by the 
appointment during the term of the first committee of 
members of the present London School Board, and we 
recommend that power should be taken to add five such 
members. The first committee would, therefore, con- 
sist of forty-eight members.’’ These recommendations 
of the committee were, after a debate consequent upon 
a proposed amendment, adopted, ‘‘ only a few hands 
being held up against ’’ them. 
The scheme thus approved by the London County 
Council has still to be sanctioned by the Board of Edu- 
cation, and it may yet be hoped that an arrangement 
will be arrived at by which the committee—with its 
thirty-eight county councillors, five women and five 
present members of the School Board—will be 
strengthened by the inclusion of men fully conversant 
with the higher educational needs of London. The 
London County Council seems hardly to have been suf- 
ficiently impressed with the gigantic proportions of the 
task before it in co-ordinating the existing unrelated 
educational forces in the metropolitan area, and with 
the difficulties to be overcome, difficulties which can 
only be appreciated adequately by those familiar with 
London’s peculiar educational requirements and de- 
ficiencies. And this is the more remarkable in view 
of the excellent work accomplished by its own Tech- 
nical Education Board during the last decade, on 
which board representatives of the City and Guilds of 
London Institute, the London Trades Council, the 
trustees of the London Parochial Charities, as well as 
of associations of schoolmasters have acted, apparently 
with a due sense of their responsibility, though, during 
the debate upon the report, the chairman of the Tech- 
nical Education Board, while testifying to the useful- 
ness of having experts on the board, said ‘‘ he always 
found that they did not act or vote with the same sense 
of responsibility as did the members of the Council on 
that body.’’ His subsequent remarks, however, seemed 
rather to indicate that his view of responsibility meant 
the application of the test whether the ratepayers would 
approve every expenditure sanctioned by the Board. 
But one of the reasons for the inclusion of co-opted 
members with special knowledge is that there shall 
be a greater chance of having an educational policy 
