664 
Education; and amongst them there are few 
reforms more urgent than the adoption of 
measures which will secure to the nation the fullest 
advantage of the best brains of its children. 
The measures recently enacted by the legislature 
of New South Wales, as explained in a paper by 
Prof, H. S. Carslaw, reprinted from the University 
Review of Sydney, of July 13, 1913, which have 
for their object the opening of a clear road to the 
poorest scholar of talent and ability in the State 
from the elementary school to the university, 
deserve the closest attention of all who are inter- 
ested in the highest welfare of the mother country. 
The Act is an attempt to bring educational 
opportunity within reach of all those who, by 
ability, attainments and character, without dis- 
tinction of class, can worthily take advantage 
of it. 
It seeks to coordinate effectively the secondary 
schools, both public and private, with the univer- 
sity, so “that under it the best pupils of the 
schools will have unrestricted access to the highest 
available education,” and to complete the educa- 
tional system built up in the State during recent 
years so as to form ‘“‘a progressive and continuous 
whole,” from the primary through the secondary 
and technical schools to the university, In the 
words of Mr, Carmichael, the Minister of Educa- 
tion, ‘‘We want to make the university the final 
effort in the educational scheme as laid down by 
the Government; to exclude nobody, but to 
include everybody who has brains and application, 
To this end a scheme of university exhibitions 
has been arranged allotting one to every five 
hundred of the population who are between the 
ages of seventeen and twenty, and exempting the 
holders from the payment of matriculation, tuition, 
and degree fees to the university. 
There will thus be, on the basis of the present 
population of New South Wales, about 200 uni- 
versity exhibitions to award in 1914, and taking 
the average university course as four years, there 
would accordingly be, when the scheme is in full 
working order, 800 students enjoying the advan- 
tages of the Act in any one year. 
But the cardinal feature of the scheme is to be 
found in the methods of award. All attempts at 
determining the merits of the candidates solely by 
an external examination, such as that of matricula- 
tion, are abandoned. Instead thereof, a system 
of ‘leaving certificates is established, for which 
pupils in the duly registered high schools, whether 
State or private, which offer at least a four-year 
course beyond the primary stage approved by a 
specially constituted board upon which the uni- 
versity is largely represented, are eligible, provided 
they have passed through the complete four-year 
course to the satisfaction of the principal alike 
in respect of attainment, conduct, and personal 
character. 
The pupils are then required to pass an examina- 
tion in at least four subjects of their school course 
to the satisfaction of a board of examiners com- 
prised of four officers of the department of public 
instruction and four professors or teachers of the 
university nominated by the senate. 
NO, 2311, VOL. 92] 
NATURE 
’ especially 
[FEBRUARY 12, 1914 
The leaving certificate is thus awarded (a) upon 
the result of the four years’ work in the high 
school; (b) upon the successful passing of an 
examination in certain subjects of the school 
course, and those pupils who take the highest 
places in the examination list are awarded the 
university exhibitions. 7 
To meet, however, the cases of persons who 
have been privately educated or who have pursued 
their studies in later years and are thereby pre- 
cluded from obtaining leaving certificates, a 
number of university exhibitions not exceeding 
five per cent. are offered annually to such persons 
who pass certain prescribed examinations, 
Provision is also made for students in evening 
tutorial classes. ; : 
Merely to exempt pupils from fees would not, 
however, remove the obstacles in the path of 
deserving but poor students, and so arrangements 
are made to meet such cases by bursaries in aid 
of their maintenance during the whole period of 
their studentship. 
As will be inferred from the foregoing state- 
ment, the proposals are really a long step in the 
direction of making the university free to all 
competent students, and to meet this the Govern- 
ment is prepared largely to increase the State 
endowment, so that the university shall not be 
crippled in its resources or development. 
It is part of a policy, in the words of Lord 
Haldane, to ‘secure for our national endeavours 
the help of our best brains,” and that is its 
justification, and the reason why the experiment 
in New South Wales is deserving of the most 
serious consideration at the hands of our educa- 
tional administrators at home, 
There are those who doubt “whether the true 
educational ideal for an industrial community is 
that of an open road from the elementary school 
to the university,” but if the university embraces, 
as it should, not only provision for the highest 
learning in all branches of knowledge, but also, 
as it should, training in their application, there 
need be little fear that the offer of “an open road” 
will not redound to the lasting good of the nation. 
J. H. REyNOLDs. 
DR. ALBERT GUNTHER, F.R.S. 
eS CHARLES LUDWIG GOTTHILF 
GUNTHER, whose death on Feburay 1 
we announced with regret last week, was 
descended from a family which settled in 
and about Méhringen on the Filder Plateau 
at the beginning of the fifteenth century, 
his father, the Estates Bursar of Méhringen, 
having taken up his residence in Esslingen, where 
Albert was born on October 3, 1830. After 
attendance at the Stuttgart Gymnasium, his family 
destined him for the Lutheran Church, and with 
that view he was trained at the Theological 
College of Tiibingen, where, as a_ student con- 
nected by descent with the Duke of Wurtemberg, 
he had free education. But science and medicine 
had greater attractions for the young naturalist, 
under such a teacher as Johannes 
