42 



NATURE 



[November 9, 1905 



attention of the educational section. Mr. Fletcher's own 

 paper, which followed, dealt with the development of 

 technical education in a new country, and suggested that 

 many of the methods which had been successful in Ireland 

 in the way of creating public interest and of eliciting the 

 cooperation of the locality might well be adopted in South 

 Africa. Nor should the Administration be deterred from 

 making a start with technical education at any centre b) 

 reports as to the apathy of the residents; Irish experience- 

 would seem to show that a supply of good instruction 

 would always produce an increasing demand for it. 



The very important question of agricultural education 

 was treated at Johannesburg by Mr. F. B. Smith, tin 

 Director of Agriculture in the Transvaal, and h\ Mr. 

 A. D. Hall at Cape Town. Mr. Smith showed how 

 efficiently an intelligence department had already been 

 organised in the matter of agriculture in the Transvaal, 

 where the farmer had at his call a service for investigation 

 and advice which could not be rivalled in any other 

 British country. An enormous amount of work had now 

 been done on such matters as the introduction of improved 

 crops, the eradication of stock diseases, &c, and the 

 Afrikander farmer was beginning to rely upon the help 

 of the department. Mr. Smith further outlined the nature 

 of the course it was proposed eventually to establish in 

 the Transvaal in connection with the future university. 

 Mr. Hall was disposed to think that questions of economy 

 would necessitate the colonies concentrating their 

 efforts chiefly upon their expert staff for investi- 

 gation and work among the current generation 

 of farmers, and that there was not the same call 

 for another staff to give instruction in the higher 

 branches of agricultural science. The type of 

 instruction for which the most pressing demand 

 existed was a practical training in more improved 

 methods of farming, and this could well be de- 

 veloped in connection with the experimental farms 

 that had already been instituted in various parts 

 of the country. It seemed as yet hardly worth 

 while to create an elaborate teaching institution 

 to produce the small number of experts and 

 Government officers whom the country would re- 

 quire yearly, since suitable men could be picked 

 out during the earlier practical courses of instruc- 

 tion and sent home to complete their scientilu 

 training. 



One question, which recurred constantly during 

 the tour, In. th in section meetings and in con- 

 versation, was that of native education, a thornj 

 subject interwoven with many prejudices, both 

 racial and religious. The general feeling among 

 colonials is almost wholly opposed to education 

 of what may nut unfairly be called the ordinary 

 missionary type, which seeks to teach the native 

 to read and write English. Many large employers 

 of labour refuse to engage any native acquainted 

 with English, and other experienced nun declare Fig. 



that the only effect of such a bookish training 

 as has been given in the past is to make the 

 native parasitic, either upon the white community or his 

 more primitive fellows. Hut education by means of handi- 

 crafts, and proceeding entirely in the natives' own 

 language, meets with general approval, both as supplying 

 .1 much desiderated discipline and making the native more 

 efficient economically, and also as likely to prove .< sound 

 method of eventually leading the native on to a higher 

 plane of civilisation. This is essentially a matter on which 

 the visitor can only speak with diffidence; indeed, it is 

 1 [aimed that many of the difficulties have arisen from the 

 ill-considered, though well meaning, action of people at 

 home. 



The papers of more general interest included a discourse 

 by Dr. J. H. Murray on " the world of words," in which 

 he discussed, with appropriate illustrations from the 

 English language, the various types of words and the 

 manner in which they originated. Dr. Brill, rector of 

 the Grey College at Bloemfontein, again submitted a paper 

 of great interest on the origin of the "Tael," the form 

 of Dutch commonly spoken throughout South Africa. The 

 Tael he holds to be a pure Dutch, "clipped," however, 

 by the removal of practically all inflexions, genders, and 



irregular forms. What little foreign element exists in the 

 language he attributes to early intercourse with the k.iM. 

 and regards it in the main as of Malayo-Portuguese origin. 

 The members of the British Association who wen 

 interested in education had many opportunities of seeing 

 the schools in the centres they visited, and also of inter- 

 ec lie-' with the teachers at work in them. The raw 

 material with which the latter have to deal may not as 

 yet have imbibed any great keenness for learning, but the 

 general attitude of the citizens of the country towards 

 education, as indicated, for example, in such matters as. 

 school buildings (often in the smaller towns oi ('ape 

 Colon) tin most notable public building was the school), 

 shows a life and determin.it ion which will not be long 

 before bearing fruit. 



THE SCOTTISH NATIONAL 

 EXPEDITION. 



ANTARCTIC 



A SUMMARY of some of the preliminary scientific- 

 results of the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition 

 appeared in the August number of the S<<>l!i^h Geo- 

 graphical Magazine, and this has now been issued in the 

 form of a corrected reprint, from the office of the expedi- 

 tion in Edinburgh. The pamphlet contains an introduction 

 by Mr. W. S. Bruce, the leader of the expedition, a paper 



.hi ill.- bathymetrical survey of the South Atlantic Ocean 

 and Weddell Sea, also by Mr. Bruce, and short papers on 

 the deep-sea deposits, by Dr. Harvey Pirie, mi tin n etei r- 

 ology of the expedition, by Mr. Mossman, and on Diego 

 Alvarez, or Gouyh Island, by Mr. Rudmose Brown. An 

 account of part of the work of the expedition has already 

 appeared in these columns (Nature, March 2). 



The most important facts brought to light in the course 

 of the sounding and exploring work are those connected' 

 with the discovery of Coats Land, and the final removal 

 from the map of the " Ross deep," in which the Erebus 

 and Terror reported 4000 fathoms no bottom. The sup- 

 posed coast-line of the Antarctic continent south-east of 

 the Weddell Sea has hitherto been placed in about 

 8o° S. lat., probably because of the belief, to which certain 

 temperature observations seemed to give support, that 

 Ross's sounding was really correct. The Scotia discovered 

 Coats Land in 72 25' S., 17 27' W., and skirted the 

 coast for 150 miles. Within 2 miles of the assigned posi- 

 tion of Ross's sounding (68° ;,2' S., 12° 49' W.) the 

 Scotia touched bottom in 201.1. fathoms, and the sounder 

 brought up a large- sample of blue mud. " Thus," as Mr. 



NO. 18S0, VOL. J$] 



