March i, 1906] 



NA TURE 



429 



out that the proposed grant referred to in a note last 

 week (p. 406) is to be made to the botanical laboratories 

 to meet the expenses of investigations in applied botany 

 which the agricultural committee of the County Council 

 desires the botanical department of the University to carry 

 out. He adds : — " There is no department of economic 

 botany in the University, nor has any fund been collected 

 for the establishment of such a department, so that the 

 cost of such a school is not in any sense ' guaranteed.' 



The Treasury has appointed a permanent committee to 

 advise the department as to the distribution of the grant- 

 in-aid of colleges furnishing education of a university 

 standard. The constitution of the committee is as 

 follows : — The Rev. H. G. Woods, chairman, Sir Francis 

 Mowatt, G.C.B., Sir William J. Collins, M.P., Prof. Henry- 

 Jackson, and Prof. W. S. McCormick. Mr. R. G. 

 Hawtrey, of the Treasury, will act as secretary. Dr. 

 H. G. Woods, the chairman of the committee, was in iqoi 

 a Treasury Commissioner for the inspection of university 

 colleges. It will be noticed that the interests of science 

 are not represented upon the committee. 



The academic congress, which recently met in St. 

 Petersburg to consider a number of questions relating to 

 Russian higher education, arrived at the following con- 

 clusions : — The Imperial Russian universities ought to be 

 State institutions, the duty of which should be to foster 

 the natural sciences ; they should be autonomous institu- 

 tions, responsible only to the Minister of Education ; they 

 should, further, be open to persons of both sexes alike, 

 irrespective of nationality and religious creeds ; the uni- 

 versity diplomas should give no privileges in the entrance 

 to the professions, &c. ; the State examinations should be 

 maintained, and those persons desirous of exercising the 

 right of putting their knowledge to professional uses should 

 be required to submit themselves to the corresponding 

 State examinations; the degree of "Master" should be 

 abolished, and those now holding it should receive the 

 " Doctor's " degree. 



The Charity Commission has forwarded to the Education 

 Committee of the London County Council a draft scheme 

 which provides that the City Polytechnic, which hitherto 

 has comprised the Birkbeck College, City of London 

 College, and Northampton Institute, shall cease to exist. 

 It is proposed that the Birkbeck College and the City of 

 London College shall constitute separate foundations, while 

 the Northampton Institute shall constitute a separate 

 charity. The whole of the endowments of the Birkbeck 

 College and the City of London College are determined 

 as educational endowments, and will therefore henceforth 

 be under the control of the Board of Education and not of 

 the Charity Commissioners, but the Northampton Institute, 

 as a charity, will presumably continue to be supervised by 

 the Charity Commission, and power is reserved for the 

 establishment of further schemes in respect of the two 

 colleges by the Board of Education and in respect of the 

 Northampton Institute by the Charity Commission. Sub- 

 ject to these provisions, the several institutions are to be 

 managed in accordance with their existing schemes and 

 by their present governing bodies. 



In the House of Commons on Monday Mr. Austen 

 Chamberlain asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer 

 whether he had undertaken to include in the Estimates 

 for 1906-7 a sum of 20,000?. for the building fund of the 

 University College of North Wales, to which fund 61,000?. 

 had been subscribed locally ; if so, whether any conditions 

 had been attached to the proposed grant ; and whether he 

 would make provision in the Estimates for similar grants 

 tn the universities and university colleges of England in the 

 same proportion to the local subscriptions. In reply, the 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer said : — " I have undertaken 

 to ask Parliament to make a grant of 20,000/. to the build- 

 ing fund of the college when the money is actually re- 

 quired for the scheme, and subject to the condition that a 

 similar sum has first been spent upon it from other sources. 

 No part of this grant will have to be provided in the 

 Estimates for 1906-7. Similar grants have already been 

 made to the two other Welsh colleges of like character. 

 No such grants have in the past been made to university 



no. 1896, vol. 12>~\ 



colleges in England, and, as the annual grants to these 

 institutions were largely increased — as I think most properly 

 increased — by the right hon. gentleman when he was 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer, I am not, as at present 

 advised, prepared to recommend a change of policy." 



The annual meeting of University College was held on 

 February 21. Lord Reay, who presided, referred to the 

 incorporation of the college in the University of London, 

 and said its object is to secure the good of university 

 education in London as a whole. Speaking of the pro- 

 posed college of technology, Lord Reay said he is convinced 

 that increased facilities for higher technological work are 

 required in London, but unless all such higher technological 

 work is in the hands of the same authority there will be 

 the same risk of overlapping, duplication, possibly of 

 triplication, that there has been in the past. Now is the 

 great opportunity for giving to the University its due 

 responsibility, and from what the University has done in 

 the last five years, said Lord Reay, it will not fail to bear 

 that responsibility. If brought within the University the 

 new college of technology would be managed by a college 

 committee much as University College will be managed. 

 Such college committee would be subject to the general 

 direction on matters of university policy of the Senate, but 

 in all other matters it would be practically self-governing. 

 It would be possible to start the new college at once within 

 the University, and while starting it with a committee 

 under the Senate there would be time to consider what 

 modifications in the general constitution of the University 

 would be made necessary. 



In the absence of Mr. Chamberlain, the Chancellor, 

 Alderman C. G. Beale, the Vice-Chancellor, presided at the 

 sixth annual meeting of the Birmingham L T niversity Court 

 of Governors on February 21. From the financial state- 

 ment it was seen that the income for the year had been 

 nearly 43,000?. ; two new chairs had been inaugurated 

 during the last twelve months, one for electrical engineer- 

 ing and the other for civil engineering. The engineering 

 department as a whole had moved into its new quarters 

 at Bournbrook ; although they were expecting the early 

 completion of this section, they were also looking forward 

 to the beginning of another by reason of the generous 

 donation of 50,000?. in November of last year ; the exact 

 form of the extension was not yet fully decided, but plans 

 for the erection of new chemical and physical depart- 

 ments were being prepared. Remarking upon the diffi- 

 culty of determining how far a certain sum of money 

 would go in providing such accommodation, Alderman 

 Beale observed that whatever was done should be done 

 on a sufficiently large scale to be permanent ; they had 

 sufficient experience to show that the large Male would 

 be the best in the long run. The erection of the Harding 

 Memorial Library, the outcome of the generous gift of 

 10,000?. from the family of the late Mr. Charles Harding, 

 was contemplated. The University had broken new 

 ground, as stated in the principal's report, by the appoint- 

 ment of Mr. W. E. Collinge as special lecturer in economic 

 biology. 



Lord Halsbury delivered an address at the annual prize 

 distribution of the City and Guilds of London Institute on 

 February 16. He said that the old apprenticeship system 

 was a good rough-and-ready way of teaching young people 

 what they wished to practise later in life. What has been 

 attempted more recently, however, is to teach, not only 

 how to ijo things, but the principles underlying their action. 

 As the result of the developments of modern life, the whole 

 world has become the market for competition. In 

 Germany, France, Switzerland, and other Continental 

 nations it has long been recognised that the old ways in 

 trade and commerce will not do, and the people there have 

 been preparing themselves by technical education, and in 

 other respects, not only to hold their own, but to forge 

 ahead in the industrial race. It is all very well for us to 

 assume an indifferent air, and say that we have been 

 getting on very well. Unfortunately, the facts seem to tell 

 a different story. For the maintenance of our commerce 

 we must use the means that other countries have used with 

 such successful results. As a judge, Lord Halsbury was 

 often struck with the large number of patent cases that 



