502 
_Lorp Curzon’s scheme for the reform of Indian educa- 
tion, referred to last week (p. 476), has been received with 
approval in this country, especially in so far as it condemns 
the dominating influence of the examination system. The 
Whole system of education is to be reorganised with the 
idea of coordinating all the forces and promoting action in 
rational directions. A Reuter message from Calcutta states 
that on Monday, March 21, the Universities Bill was passed 
by the Legislative Council after a second sitting lasting 
three days. In the course of a speech upon the objects of 
the Bill, Lord Curzon said that the university question was 
a most vital, tremendous, and sacred one, and would have 
a profound effect upon the future of the people. 
A FREE public reference library, having distinctive 
characteristics, is in course of formation by the London 
‘County Council at the Horniman Museum, Forest Hill. 
Uh priinary intention is to encourage the study of geology 
and the biological sci@ficés—especially as represented in the 
Horniman Museum collections—by providing the best books 
on these subjects, more particularly the works of admitted 
authority which, by reason of cost and a relatively small de- 
mand, are not ordinarily found in libraries freely accessible 
to the general public. 
It has already been announced that the Committee of 
the Privy Council has agreed to recommend the scheme for 
the foundation of the University of Leeds on the understand- 
ing that a capital sum of at least 100,000l. be raised for 
university purposes. At a meeting of Leeds citizens held on 
Tuesday, it was stated that annual grants amounting to - 
about 12,0001. have been promised from various public 
sources, but the power to utilise this additional income 
effectively will depend to a great extent on the raising of 
a sufficient capital sum to carry out the extensions. These 
extensions, with their equipment, will cost not less than 
70,000l., and an effort should be made to add at least 
50,0001. to the endowment fund. Promises of nearly 40,0001. 
have been already received. Many of these are, however, 
conditional on 100,000l. at least being raised. The follow- 
ing resolution was unanimously adopted :—‘‘ That this 
meeting welcomes the foundation of a university upon the 
basis of the Yorkshire College, and expresses its earnest 
hope that such a capital sum will be obtained forthwith as 
will enable the university to carry out the important educa- 
tional purposes for which it will be established.” 
In a lecture delivered at Owens College, Manchester, on 
March 15, Mr. Brudenell Carter laid down the general 
proposition that if ever the art of education is placed upon 
a scientific basis, it will properly be regarded as a depart- 
ment of applied physiology. Referring to the educators of 
to-day, Mr. Carter said that their art is purely empirical, and 
they work upon a basis of limited personal experience uncon- 
trolled by scientific knowledge or by any general and 
admitted principles of action. They differ widely from one 
another on questions which should be placed beyond the 
reach of doubt, and there is no general recognition of any 
authority to which they can appeal. In these circumstances 
it is surely time for physiology to emerge from her seclusion 
and to apply herself to a systematic investigation into that 
which is fitting or necessary to be done. The physiologist 
who desires to elucidate educational problems, the lecturer 
remarked, is confronted by three of primary importance. 
The first is to ascertain the conditions which determine the 
greater or less strength of the brain as a whole; the second, 
assuming every healthy child to be adequately furnished at 
birth with brain cells in a rudimentary state, is to ascertain 
what are the conditions which call those cells into activity 
or which condemn them to remain only partially developed ; 
and the third is to ascertain what circumstances determine 
development in one direction rather than in another. 
Tue Goldsmiths’ Company has decided to give up the 
Goldsmiths’ Institute at New Cross on September 29 next, 
and the staff have received notice that their engagements 
will be terminated on that date. The reasons for this 
decision of the company are given in a letter addressed to 
all members of the staff. The letter states that the funds 
necessary for the site, buildings, equipment, and mainten- 
ance of the institute have been provided out of the company’s 
NO. 1795, VOL. 69 | 
NATURE 
[Marc 24, 1904 
=. a 
private resources, and as a consequence the institute has, 
unlike the other polytechnic institutions in the metropolis, 
occupied an entirely independent position; but this indepen- 
dence cannot be maintained in the future, for the Education 
Act has constituted a single authority for the whole of 
London education, and this body will have supreme power 
over all schools and institutions maintained by public 
money. It is desirable that voluntary institutions such as 
the Goldsmiths’ Institute should be coordinated with other 
metropolitan educational institutions. It has of late been 
increasingly difficult for the Goldsmiths’ Institute to hold 
its own, and to keep pace with other institutions financed 
by means of charitable and public funds, and this difficulty 
will be greatly accentuated in the future, having regard to 
the fact that the cost of secondary, as well as that of 
primary, education will be paid for out of the rates. For 
these and similar reasons the Company has decided to dis- 
continue the institute. 
Str Donactp Currie has given 80,0001. for the erection of 
a school of advanced medical studies in connection with 
University College, and in this way has removed the only 
impediment to the complete incorporation of University 
College with the University of London. In a letter to Lord 
Rosebery, the Chancellor of London University, and Lord 
Reay, president of University College, making known his 
generous intention, Sir Donald Currie says he gives the 
sum necessary for the purpose knowing that when the 
incorporation has been accomplished, University College 
‘“ will be maintained as a centre of wide academic culture, 
and that anatomy, physiology (including pharmacology), 
biology, chemistry, physics, &c., which are subjects of pre- 
liminary and intermediate medical study, will still continue 
to be taught there.’’ In addition, Sir Donald Currie has 
given a further 20,0001. to provide a suitable nurses’ home 
and accommodation for medical students, and his daughters 
have given 25001. to furnish the home and to secure a 
library for it. In thanking Sir Donald Currie for his 
magnificent gift, Lord Rosebery and Lord Reay point out 
that the donation will assist the university and the college 
to carry out the scheme of incorporation which it is believed 
will be of the highest importance to the future of university 
education in London, and will direct the course of the uni- 
versity authorities along the line of development by which 
London may be made the seat of a university worthy of 
the metropolis of the Empire. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Lonpon. 
Royal Society, March 3.—‘‘The Optical Properties of 
Vitreous Silica.’’? By J. W. Gifford and W. A. Shenstone, 
BAR ISS. 
The authors have made a number of measurements of the 
optical constants of vitreous silica, which substance, owing 
to its uniformity of composition, to its great transparency to 
ultra-violet radiations, and to its not being doubly refracting 
like quartz, seems likely before long to play an important 
part in optical work. 
At present it is rather costly, but this difficulty is rapidly 
being overcome. 
The prisms used by the authors were made by processes 
already described in our columns (Nature, vol. Ixii. p. 20, 
and vol. Ixiv. p. 45). The uniformity of the new glass was 
tested by building up a compound prism from four slabs of 
silica, prepared separately, by cementing them one above 
another and then cutting a prism from the mass. This was 
compared with a similar prism made from four pieces of 
borosilicate glass (Schott’s No. 0.364), all from the same 
melting, and was found to be distinctly superior in its 
performance to the latter. 
The paper includes a curve for a thin doublet of fluorite 
achromatised with vitreous silica which shows that the 
focal length of the combination is almost independent of the 
wave-length, also a list of focal lengths for a lens of 
fluorite and vitreous silica, and a table of the partial and 
proportional dispersions of fluorite, vitreous silica and 
quartz. 
