524 



NA TURE 



[March 29, 1906 



it seems lo me that you will have a rapidly increasing 

 number of the best English boys and girls going on with 

 their pure education, certainly well into the secondary 

 stage. In this way you will catch your potential Faradays. 

 One of the delightful things I found in my inspection 

 here with Mr. Millis was that in your instruction, frankly 

 so called, you make it as educational as you can, so that 

 those who come to you alter the age of the primary school 

 may, if they so choose, b) taking advantage of one or other 

 of your organisations, not only get an immense amount of 

 absolutely needed instruction for various walks of life, but 

 an education which will be practically as good as an educa- 

 tion which could be got on the ordinary education ladder 

 to enable them to enter the universities. The recent 

 improvements in education are brought home to us by the 

 fact that Huxley's ladder by itself no longer represents all 

 the present possibilities. There are now platforms at the 

 chief stepping-off places, and ladders from them also lead- 

 ing to the university for those who do not fear to climb. 

 These platforms are technical schools and institutes, in 

 which practical training in science laboratories and litera- 

 ture must both find place. 



There is one word I should like to say with regard to 

 your day school. It is called a "Technical Day School 

 ft i Boys." I find that in the London County Council list, 

 Appendix B, it is called a "secondary school." Now are 

 you a secondary school ? That is a point that I am not 

 quite familiar with. What I understand is that under the 

 ivw regulations a school to be a secondary school must 

 make application to the Hoard of Education to be reckoned 

 as such, and if it is accepted you have this enormous 

 advantage, or will have very shortly, if you have not it 

 now. Your students will have the right to go to the uni- 

 versity by passing the leaving examination, which will 

 ultimately be carried on by the teachers in the secondary 

 school, or, at all events, with teachers associated with the 

 secondary school. I think you will agree with me that the 

 less any education in any locality is fettered by examination 

 by outsiders the better for that education it will be. If 

 you are a secondary school your students will be able, as 

 a matter of course, to enter the new university. Thank 

 God that in London, after centuries of the neglecl oi 

 education, we have a university ; we shall soon be as well 

 off as a good many second-rate towns on the other side of 

 the water have been for hundreds of years. I believe it 

 is settled that your students can matriculate at the uni- 

 versity, can become internal students without the bugbear 

 of Latin, if you look upon Latin as a bugbear. Personally, 

 I do not ; if you have time to learn Latin, so much the 

 better, but if the struggle for existence is so great that it 

 is science or nothing with you, well, with science you can 

 now enter the London University from a secondary school. 

 You will then carry your local students right up to the 

 second rung, some will go on to the university, and some 

 will step off to your evening classes. Voltaire, talking 

 about education, said : — " On etudie les livres en attendant 

 qu'on Etudie les hommes " (" We studv books before we 

 have a chance of studying men "). Well, we have got 

 past that now ; we not only study books, but we study 

 things, but whether we study books or things our educa- 

 tion will not be complete until we study men, that is to 

 say, until we have varied occasions of mingling with others 

 who are thinking about other things, so that we may ex- 

 change thoughts and ideas and sympathies with other 

 students of different branches of knowledge. Now I want 

 to point out what a magnificent opportunity you have here 

 for that kind of collegiate education. You are practically 

 a college, and I believe strongly that this collegiate life, 

 as we may call it, this mixing with one's fellow men, is 

 of the very highest quality, that it is the absolute essential 

 of a complete course of education which should produce 

 what is called character. And let me remind you that 

 people are prepared to pa) a great deal for character. I 

 find, for instance, that Mr. Balfour not very long ago said 

 the collective effect of our public school education on 



character could not 1 ver-rated, but he thought the boys 



of seventeen or eighteen who are educated in them do not 

 care a farthing about the world they live in except so far 

 as it concerned the cricket field, the football field, or the 

 river. You have the machinery to enable you to care a 



NO I9OO, VOL. J T,] 



great deal about the world you live in, to know an immense- 

 deal about it, and you have also the machinery for 

 (his formation of character. Now I believe in the com- 

 bination, and it is upon that ground I hope some future 

 da) in see a strong secondary school here. I believe it 

 will be a very great boon to this part of London ; in fact, 

 I feel so strongly on this that I should say your enormous 

 advantages would be wasted if you did not take some 

 part in the general scheme of pure education, and that 

 part is quite obvious ; you have to make your day schoot 

 one of the best secondary schools it is possible to imagine. 

 I should have hesitated to give you my opinion on your 

 proper place in education and the excellence of your teach- 

 ing staff and laboratories if I had not had an opportunity 

 1 I examining your institution, and, in concluding, I want 

 again to thank Mr. Millis for his very great kindness in 

 showing me over it the other day. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Dr. R. S. Lull, associate professor of zoology at the 

 Massachusetts Agricultural College, has been appointed 

 assistant professor of vertebrate palaeontology in Yale Uni- 

 versity, and associate curator of vertebrate palaeontology in 

 the Yale University (Peabody) Museum. 



Prof. W. W. Watts, F.R.S., who is leaving Birming- 

 ham to take up the professorship of geology at the Royal 

 College of Science, was entertained by his geological friends 

 in Birmingham on March 23. Prof. Charles Lapworth, 

 F.R.S., who presided, referred to the many services which 

 Prof. Watts had rendered to geological students. Prof. 

 Watts, after acknowledging the presentation made by Mr 

 J. Whitehouse on behalf of the past and present students, 

 said that he was going to a school which would be in 

 health) but friendly rivalry to the Birmingham school. 



American institutions for providing higher education con- 

 tinue to benefit from the generosity of wealthy American 

 citizens. Science announces that Princeton University has 

 been made the residuary legatee of the estate of Mrs. J. 



rhompson Swan, which is said to be worth about 60,000/. 



The late Mr. Edwin Gilbert, of Georgetown, Conn., has 

 hit 1 2.000/. for the model farm of the Connecticut Agri- 

 cultural College. Harvard University has received a gift 

 of 10,000/. from Mr. R. W. Sayles, of Norwich, Conn., 

 to establish a fund, preferably for the acquisition, prepar- 

 ation, and maintenance of collections suitable for a geo- 

 logical museum. 



The Board of Education has issued a return showing 

 the extent to which, and the manner in which, local authori- 

 ties in England and Wales have applied funds to the pur- 

 poses of technical education, and other forms of education 

 other than elementary, during the year 1903-4. In con- 

 sequence of the fact that the Education Act, 1902, was 

 coming into operation throughout the year with which the 

 report deals, and that advantage was taken of this fact 

 to initiate a new series of returns of this form of expendi- 

 ture, the year must be regarded from the statistical point 

 of view as transitional in character. The volume is, in 

 fact, divided into two parts, the first continuing for about 

 half the total number of local authorities the former series 

 of returns, and the second initiating the new series for the 

 remainder. The consequence is that the volume provides 

 no total of the figures dealing with the whole country, and 

 mi view of the incompatibility of the bases of the expendi- 

 ture shown in the two parts, such totals would only be 

 misleading. 



The 1906 issue of the " Register and Official Announce- 

 ment " of the Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, 

 has been received. Among other interesting information, it 

 may be noticed that the University has several funds for 

 the endowment of fellowships. A sum of 600/. is now 

 available for junior and senior fellowships from the George 

 F. Hoar fund of 20,000/., provided by the generosity of Mr. 

 Carnegie. There are in addition a citizen's fund of 1000/., 

 the income of which is to be used for the aid of " some one 

 or more worthy native-born citizens of the city of Worcester 



