NOVEMBER 26, 1896] 
NATURE 
gI 
UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Oxrorp.—The Professor of Anthropology (Dr. E. B. Tylor) 
delivered a public lecture on Monday, November 23, at the 
Museum, on ‘* North American Picture-Writing, with special 
reference to a Series of Historical Wampum-Belts of the 
Hurons.” 
The second meeting of the Junior Scientific Club for this 
term was held on November 18, and was very largely attended. 
Prof. Gotch performed an experiment showing the effect of a 
current induced in a nerve, insulated in air, by a Wimshurst 
electrical machine. Prof. Ray Lankester exhibited and described 
(1) a series of casts of the jaws and teeth of Ornithorhynchus, 
and of fossil mammalia from the Stonesfield slate; (2) a 
specimen of Triarthrus presented by Prof. O. C. Marsh; (3) a 
number of species of Leptocephali. In connection with the 
last, Prof. Lankester gave an account of the development of 
the eel as determined by Grassi. Lord Berkeley read a paper 
on ‘‘ The Necessity of Metaphysics in Science,” which was 
followed by a prolonged discussion. 
CAMBRIDGE.—Mr. T. L. Heath, editor of Diophantus and 
Apollonius, has been approved for the degree of Doctor of 
Science. 
The Council of the Senate propose to present a memorial to 
the Lord President of the Privy Council communicating the 
resolutions of the recent Conference on Secondary Education, 
and urging the importance of early legislation on the subject. 
Mr. J. b. Lightfoot has generously presented to the engineer- 
ing laboratory a refrigerating machine and ice-making apparatus 
especially adapted for.experimental purposes. 
Prof. Ewing, Prof. J. Perry, and Mr. J. B. Peace have been 
appointed examiners in mechanical science. 
Mr. W. M. Fletcher and Mr. E. B. H. Wade have been 
elected Coutts Trotter students in experimental physics at 
Trinity College. 
-\ BRILLIANT assembly met in the amphitheatre of the new 
Sorbonne on Thursday last, the occasion being the inauguration 
of the newly-constituted University of Paris. From the 777s’ 
report we learn that the magnificent hall was filled with a 
distinguished company, including the President of the Republic, 
the Prime Minister and his colleagues and the Presidents of the 
two Houses, the Academicians, the resplendent Diplomatic 
Corps, all the public bodies, the entire faculty of the Paris 
University in their robes, and some 5000 or 6000 students. 
The bodies hitherto forming part of the University of France, 
which now constitute the University of Paris, are the faculties of 
Letters, Sciences, Law, Medicine, and Protestant Theology. 
Without reckoning the 41 chairs of the Collége de France, 
which retains an independent position, the University has 116 
professors, besides lecturers, laboratory directors, and experi- 
mentalists. 
Tue Report of the U.S. Commissioner of Education for the 
year ending June 30, 1894. consists of two volumes, each of 
more than one thousand pages. The mass of information thus 
brought together refers to schools of all grades and in all 
countries ; but limits of space will only permit us to mention a 
few of the matters dealt with. The report of the ‘‘ Committee 
of ten,” appointed by the National Educational Association to 
inquire into the courses of study and conditions of secondary 
schools, was summarised in these columns a short time ago 
(vol. liv. p. 308). Another Committee, composed of fifteen 
members, was appointed to investigate, in a like manner, the 
work of elementary schools, and their report is included in one 
of the volumes before us. The Committee discussed in detail 
the several branches of study that have found a place in the 
curriculum of the elementary school, with a view to discover 
their educational value for developing and training the faculties 
of the mind. Language is given the first place, the opinion 
being that, in the form of reading, penmanship, and grammar, 
it should be prominent in the first eight years of study. Arith- 
metic is given the second place in importance of all studies, 
because it or mathematical study furnishes the first scientific key 
to the existence of bodies and their various motions. Mathe- 
matics in its pure form, as arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and 
the application of the analytical method, as well as mathe- 
matics applied to matter and force, or statics and dynamics, 
furnishes the peculiar study that gives the command of the 
quantitative aspect of nature. It is held that the study of 
NO. 1433, VOL. 55] 
arithmetic should begin with the second school year and end 
with the close of the sixth year, the seventh and eighth years 
being devoted to algebraical methods. Following arithmetic as 
the second study in importance among the branches that corre- 
late man to nature is geography. This is, therefore, given the 
next place. The next study ranked in order of value by the 
Committee is history, after which come other branches, among 
which is science. It is held that ‘‘ Natural science claims a 
place in the elementary school not so much as a disciplinary 
study, side by side with grammar, arithmetic, and history, as a 
training in habits of observation and in the use of the technique 
by which such sciences are expounded.” Other matters of 
scientific interest dealt with in the report are forestry educa- 
tion in France; geology in the colleges and universities of the 
United States; rules for the spelling and pronunciation of 
chemical terms ; rise and progress of manual training ; American 
learned and educational societies, and criminology. 
THE current number of the Reve Générale des Sciences 
contains a paper by M. Cornu, the President of the Académie 
des Sciences, on the objects of the instruction in the Ecole 
Polytechnique, and on the principles which ought to decide the 
courses of instruction therein. In view of the multitudinous 
discussions in this country on the general questions of the co- 
ordination of the teaching in schools of different grades and of 
the prevention of overlapping, this paper is of exceptional 
interest. The general conclusions at which M. Cornu arrives 
are as follows. (We must refer our readers to the Aezzze for the 
arguments which lead up to them.) The object of the school is 
to give young men destined for the public services that theoretical 
knowledge which is necessary to enable them to perform their 
duties with confidence, and to qualify them to help towards the 
perfection of these services. What is termed /a Mechanigue 
rationnelle is the foundation of this polytechnic instruction. 
Students ought to be competent, at the end of their studies, to 
solve any problem which they may be called upon to deal with in 
their future careers of engineers and officers. Considering the 
limited number of years of study and the impossibility of any 
great development in the interesting subsidiary branches of 
science, the instruction in other sciences—such as analysis, 
physics, astronomy—ought to be arranged in sucha manner as 
to assist in the completion and illustration of this course of 
mechanics. The list of acquirements demanded on admission 
ought to form a homogeneous whole, without either adventitious 
additions or serious omissions, capable of immediate application, 
and, as far as possible, easy of later completion, either by the 
courses of this school, or of the places of higher instruction, or 
even by the efforts of the students individually. The experience 
of old students and their teachers has shown that those subjects 
studied during the years preparatory to admission leave the most 
lasting impression on the minds of the students. The courses 
of the school leave a profound impression, it is true, but to a 
less degree than this preparatory work. Finally, since the pre- 
paratory instruction to the polytechnic school exercises this 
decisive influence on the minds of the students, it ought to be 
directed with a view to giving results which would form an 
intellectual equipment sufficient to serve during the whole career 
of the student. These results ought to be established by simple 
and general methods, and to be presented under a definite form 
on the same lines as those which will be used later. Not only 
should all useless refinements be carefully avoided, but even 
subjects which are not in immediate harmony with the general 
trend of polytechnic instruction. 
SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 
American Journal of Science, November.—Missourite, a new 
leucite rock from the Highwood Mountains of Montana, by W. 
HH. Weed and L. V. Pirsson. This new rock type forms a 
stock of granular rock intrusion in cretaceous shales, and in the 
fragmental volcanic material which overlies them, both being 
highly altered near the contact with the igneous mass. It is 
dark grey, coarsely and evenly granular, and on closer inspec- 
tion presents a mottled appearance. The minerals present are 
apatite, iron ore, olivine, augite, biotite, leucite, and some 
zeolitic products. This is the first granular volcanic rock in 
which leucite has been found.—Viscosity of mixtures of liquids, 
by C. E. Linebarger. The viscosities found by Ostwald’s 
method are all less than those calculated by the rule of 
mixtures, except in certain mixtures of benzene and chloro- 
