JANuaRY 21, 1897 | 
NATURE 28 
7 
Beloit College, Wisconsin; Dr. S. Kalischer to be professor of 
physics in the Technical High School at Charlottenberg ; Dr. 
W. Autenrieth to be provisional successor to the late Prof. 
Baumann in the chair of physiological chemistry in the University 
of Freiburg, in Baden. 
AT the ordinary general meeting of Convocation of the 
University of London, on Monday, the report of the annual 
committee was adopted. The recommendations of a sub- 
committee, appointed to consider the possibility of rendering 
the library and laboratory of the University more available for 
general use, came up for discussion. A motion was carried 
expressing regret at the lack of a University Hall, which com- 
pelled the Senate to use the library for purposes for which it was 
not intended, and asking the Senate to consider whether steps 
could not be taken to remove the limitations which exist to the 
free use of the library. The sub-committee reported that the 
chemical and physical laboratories of the University are, gua 
laboratories, non-existent ; but no remedies for these defects 
were suggested. It was pointed out that a complete and radical 
reorganisation is needed in the equipment of the University 
before its laboratories can be regarded as adequate for even the 
restricted purposes of examination, to say nothing of those of 
teaching or research. Indeed, the sub-committee doubts 
whether a laboratory equipped for the purpose of examina- 
tion can properly be used for teaching or research 
The Council of the Royal Botanic Society have offered 
a site, free of cost, for the erection of a students’ observa- 
tory in connection with the University, together with the use 
of a lecture-room. The report of the annual committee adds 
that boards of studies in the subjects of physics, chemistry, 
botany, modern languages and literatures, mental and moral 
science, classics, political economy, and zoology are now actively 
engaged in the revision of the various syllabuses. 
A STRONG committee, representing the leading associations 
concerned with technical and secondary education in this 
country, was formed last October to consider the ways and 
means of promoting legislation for secondary education. The 
committee has now unanimously adopted a number of resolu- 
tions, and submitted them to the Lord President of Council. 
Among the resolutions are the following: (a) In order to bring 
the State into a fitting relation to secondary education, it is 
necessary to provide for the constitution of a central authority 
suitable for this purpose (under a Minister of Education, when 
appointed), simultaneously with the provision of local educa- 
tional authorities. (6) To this central authority should be 
transferred the powers and functions at present exercised by the 
Education Department and the Science and Art Department, so 
far as they relate to secondary education. In the opinion of 
this committee, it is of urgent importance that the Charity 
Commission should, as soon as possible, be included in the 
central authority, so far as its educational functions are con- 
cerned. (c) The centralauthority should include an educational 
council constituted on the principle laid down in the Teachers’ 
Registration Bill of 1896, which council, in addition to the 
duties imposed on it in that Bill, might advise the Minister on 
the schemes for the constitution of local authorities and other 
matters referred to it by him. (d) There should be created a 
local authority for secondary education in every county or county 
borough, but in no areas smaller than these. Adjoining counties 
and county boroughs to have power to unite. (e) Scholarships 
and exhibitions should be tenable at, or open to the pupils of. 
any efficient school or institution ; and this should not be re- 
garded as aid to the school or institution within the meaning of 
the Act. (/) It is desirable that the legislation proposed should 
include a Bill, similar to the Bill of last Session, for the purpose 
of registering teachers qualified to teach in secondary schools, 
with this modification, that the third group of representatives of 
teachers on the registration council should be elected by persons 
not included in groups I and 2. 
SPEAKING at a dinner given by the Drapers’ Company, on 
Thursday last, to ‘‘ meet the Lord President of the Council and 
the Incorporated Association of Head Masters,” the Duke of 
Devonshire sketched the position of the Government with regard 
to secondary education. In the course of his remarks, he said : 
—‘‘This would not, I think, be a fitting opportunity on which 
I should attempt to discuss the measure which I trust may at no 
distant date be introduced bearing upon this subject by Her 
Majesty’s Government. But I think I may safely say that when 
NO. 1421, VOL. 55] 
the time comes when Parliament will be called upon to deal with 
this question a very considerable agreement will be found to 
exist as to the principles—the general principles—I will not say 
the details - upon which it should be founded. TI believe that 
the principles which have been laid down in the report of the 
Royal Commission 6n Education, which was published a year, or 
a little more than a year ago, have met as to their general lines 
—I refrain altogether from saying as to their details—with the 
general approval and the consent of those who have been con- 
cerned either in an administrative or a professional capacity 
with this subject. You will remember that those lines were, 
generally speaking, drawn in local rather than in centralised 
directions, and that while the necessity has been admitted for 
unifying and concentrating many of those educational forces, 
which are at present unduly and unnecessarily dispersed, the 
Commissioners have carefully borne in mind the necessity of 
doing nothing to injure that which they themselves have de- 
scribed as the rich variety of our educational life, or to impair 
the individual energy and activity which has actuated it. 
These are the principles which I believe and trust will underlie 
any measure which the Government may ultimately feel itself 
able to introduce. As to what needs to be done, there is first 
the necessity of remodelling the central authority, which prob- 
ably may be done rather by administrative than by legislative 
methods, exercising powers which will be chiefly those of super- 
intendence, revision, and advice, but for the exercise of which 
the central authority ought to combine the knowiedge of en- 
dowed schools, of organised science schools, of science and art 
schools, of higher grade Board schools, which is now possessed 
by various and separate departments of the Government. 
Secondly, I think we are all pretty universally agreed that it is 
| necessary to constitute some local authorities administering the 
secondary education over areas of sufficient extent; and, 
thirdly, something in the nature of an educational council ought 
to form part of the central authority, although it would have to 
exercise, not administrative, but purely consultative functions.” 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
Paris. 
Academy of Sciences, January 11.—M. A. Chatin in the 
chair.—The Secretary announced to the Academy the loss it had 
sustained in the death of Dr. Gould, Correspondant in the 
Section of Astronomy.—Notice on the scientific work of 
Benjamin Apthorp Gould, by M. Lewy.—Researches on the 
composition of French and foreign wheat, by MM. Aimé Girard 
and E. Fleurent.—Observations on the periodic Brooks’ comet 
(1889 v-1896 c), and the comets of Giacobini (1896 @), Brooks- 
Spéra (1896e), Perrine (1896 /), and Perrine (1896 ¢), made 
with the longe equatorial of the Observatory of Bordeaux, by 
MM. G. Rayet, L. Picart, and F. Courty.—Remarks by M. 
Armand Gautier, on presenting to the Academy a copy of his 
work on normal and pathological biological chemistry. —Alt- 
mentary hygiene ; red and white wine, by M. P. Carles. —Note 
on a project for crossing Central Europe by an aerostat, by MM. 
G. Besancon and E. Aimé.—The rarefaction of air in balloons, 
by M. O. Julien. —New nebulz discovered at the Paris Ob- 
servatory, by M. G. Bigourdan.—Observations on shooting 
stars of December 12, 1896, made at Athens, by M. D. Egenitis. 
—Remarks on the method of Gauss for the determination of the 
orbits of the small planets, by M. J. Perchot.—Distances of the 
solar system, by M. Delauney.—On the movement of a solid in 
an indefinite liquid, by M. R. Liouville. —Some remarks on a 
note by M. Delsol, entitled ‘‘On a thermic machine,” by M. 
H. Pellat. The reasoning in question would make the machine 
described of higher efficiency than that given by the application 
to the case of the second law of thermodynamics. Two ob- 
jections are raised to the arguments given by M. Delsol. —On 
the variation of the melting point with pressure, by M. R. 
Demerliac. The rate of change of melting point with pressure 
has been experimentally studied for paratoluidine, and for 
a-naphthylamine. The values obtained are in complete agree- 
ment with those given by the formula of Clapeyron, involving the 
latent heat of fusion and change in the specific volume.—On the 
absolute value of the magnetic elements on January 1, 1897, by 
M. Th. Moureaux.—On the density of ozone, by M. Marius 
Otto. The same flask was filled successively with dry oxygen 
and ozonised oxygen, and weighed, the amount of ozone present 
being after determined with suitable precautions by means of an 
