26o 



NATURE 



[January i i, 1906 



and habits had been entirely altered by accidents to the 

 brain, and said that while Newton was physically weak. 

 Young, who was his superior even in mental capai ii\, was 

 a circus rider, and could perform almost any bodily feat. 



Sir Lauder Brunton spoke of the need to train the higher 

 inhibitory nerve centres, and of the possibility ol keeping 

 in order involuntary movements. He said that children 

 could not do physical exercises unless they were properly 

 fed, and urged that no damage must be done by over- 

 exertion. Medical inspection was desirable, but teachers, 

 he thought, could easily learn to recognise the signs of 

 danger. 



Dr. Kerr (medical adviser to the London County Council 

 Kducation Committee) took as his subject the position of 

 physical exercises in the infant department of the elemen- 

 tary school. He pointed out that while certain of the 

 nerve cells in the infant were quickly matured, and this 

 was especially so with those dealing with behaviour that 

 has been hereditary for long periods, other nerve cells were 

 still capable of being acted upon for a considerable time. 

 In this state they were very susceptible to fatigue, and 

 frequent periods of rest were needed in which the waste 

 products from action could be removed. He advised the 

 use of physical exercises for infants, and maintained that 

 no great perfection of detail ought to be looked for. 



Of a different character was Mrs. Kimniins's paper on 

 the educational value of organised play, for it was a 

 graphic account of the way in which most of the benefits 

 claimed as coming from physical training could be gained 

 out of school, and in the particular case described, away 

 from it. 



All the speakers upon physical exercises agreed that these 

 were only complementary to games; and in the lasl paper 

 of the day Miss Kingston (organising instructor of physical 

 exercises of the London County Council) discussed the 

 interrelation of drill and organised plav. 



It should be pointed out that all concerned were mosl 

 anxious that the word drill should not be used, as it called 

 up in the mind military drill, something quite different from 

 the exercises and unfitted for children. There was also 

 considerable unanimity as regards the need for the pupils 

 to do the work for its own sake and as a pleasure, and not 

 as a task. Sir Lauder Brunton was most emphatic on 

 this point, as was also Dr. Kerr. The Rev. Stuart 

 Headlam, a member of the old School Board, in the dis- 

 cussion objected to things being made too pleasant, but it 

 had been pointed out that even games pall if they are too 

 much organised, and their interest and freshness thus lost. 



["here is no doubt but that as true nature-study should 

 properly put the child so far as possible into the same 

 mental relation with its surroundings that primitive man 

 enjoyed, so physical exercises adopted in a pleasurable way 

 should counteract the baneful effects of civilisation, as 

 Dr. Kerr pointed out on Thursday, and, one may add, give 

 our young people the bodily advantages of their remote 

 ancestors. 



As on previous occasions, Mr. C. A. Buckmaster and Dr. 

 Kimmins (chief inspectors, respectively, to the Board of 

 Education and the London County Council, education 

 committee) organised the conference in a remarkably 

 successful manner. Wilfred Mark Webb. 



COLOUR VISION IN THE PERIPHERAL 



RETINA. 1 



'Pill" results of a research into the nature of colour 



vision in the peripheral portions of the retina, carried 



on by Mr. Baird during the years mo; and 1004 in the 



psychological laboratory of Cornell University, have lately 



been published in a pamphlet. The work so carefully done 



by Hess and the numerous papers by him on this subject 



have received fairly general acceptance, and in the present 



work Mr. Baird confirms most of Mess's conclusions. 



lie reason lie gives for the publication of a pamphlet 



which contains little new work of an\ great value is that 



rch on Hie nature of colour sensation 



in the peripheral retina, had arrived at conclusions which 



1 "The Colour Sensitivity ot the Peripheral Retina." By John Wallace 

 Hcird. Pp. So. (Published by the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 



NO. 18S9, VOL. 7$] 



controverted many of the statements of earlier observers, 

 and it was deemed advisable to repeat Hellpach's work 

 in order to see whether there might not be some fallacy 

 in the method. Mr. Baird's work practically in every 

 respect confirms that of Hess, and we think there is little 

 doubt that his explanation of the confusing results obtained 

 by Hellpach is correct, that Hellpach did not allow 

 sufficient time to elapse between successive stimulations, 

 and consequently the colour sensation due to the immediate 

 stimulation was partly modified by a latent after image of 

 the preceding stimulus. 



In standardising his colours, Mr. Baird arrived at prac- 

 tically the same results as Hess. The red used transmitted 

 no part of the visible spectrum, and Hess, in order to get 

 a stable red, had to mix it with a certain amount of blue. 

 The yellow, green, and blue used corresponded fairly 

 exactly with Hess's stable colours. 



It is when we come to the problem of equating the white 

 values of the different colours that the greatest difficulty 

 is met with. We must confess to a strong suspicion of 

 the value of Mr. Baird's method. He is engaged on a 

 research on the nature of colour vision in the peripheral 

 retina, and in the determination of his standards he utilises 

 the very portion of the retina which he is subsequently 

 going to investigate. We quite allow that there is no 

 satisfactory method of equating white values at present 

 known, but we certainly think that Mr. Baird has chosen 

 the least satisfactory of all. Probably the best method 

 of photometry available at present depends on the flicker 

 phenomenon, and for Mr. Baird's purpose we feel sure it 

 would have been much more suitable and much men. 

 scientific than the method he did adopt. 



In other respects the work has evidently been earefullj 

 done, and though, as we have said, it adds little thai is 

 new to our stock of knowledge, it is of value in that it 

 confirms much of the work of previous observers. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Dr. R. A. Leiifeldt, professor of physics at the East 

 London College, has been appointed to the chair of physics 

 in the Transvaal Technical Institute, Johannesburg. 



The Corporation of Glasgow has resolved to make a 

 grant of 10, 000/. to the building fund of the Glasgow and 

 West of Scotland Technical College, from the common 

 good of the city. 



It is satisfactory to find a committee of the Classical 

 Association reporting that " in view of the legitimate 

 claims of other subjects the amount of time devoted to 

 the classics on the classical side of boys' public schools 

 is as great as can reasonably be expected." From the 

 report which was presented at a meeting of the association 

 on Saturday last, it appears that in the highest form on 

 the classical side in the larger public schools a consider- 

 able amount of specialisation is allowed to many boys. 

 In the other forms the time devoted to Greek and Latin 

 together generally amounts to about one-half of the whole 

 number of school hours. In the smaller public schools 

 there is less specialisation in the highest form. The pro- 

 portion of time given in school to classics increases from 

 less than one-third in the lowest form in which 

 both 1, i' el; and Latin are studied to slightly less than two- 

 thirds in the highest form. The committee suggested that 

 lime and effort might be saved and better results obtained 

 In certain changes in the method of teaching Greek; and 

 in the discussion upon the resolutions put forward with 

 this end in view, we are glad to see that Canon Lyttelton, 

 headmaster of Eton, pointed out that the time gained by 

 the adoption of the plan proposed " might well be given 

 to instruction in some of the elements of scientific know- 

 ledge rather than to history and archaeology. Let them 

 hold out a helping hand to their scientific colleague and 

 meet them half-way. There had been too little conciliation 

 between the two sections of teachers. Then we might 

 hope to correlate these great subjects, which were too 

 important to abandon, but which we had not yet enabled 

 to live in amitv together." 



