fay 8, 1884] 



NA TURE 



39 



THE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH AND 

 EDUCATION EXHIBITION 



HERE is at first sight some lack of unity of purpose 

 in an exhibition which undertakes to illustrate such 

 diverse subjects as health and public education. This im- 

 pression will be in the present case confirmed partly by 

 the postponement of the opening of the Educational Sec- 

 tion to the month of June, and partly by the fact that the 

 display of educational appliances will be held in the 

 neighbouring building, the new Technical School of the 

 City and Guilds of London Institute, and not in the 

 galleries of the Exhibition building itself. A mere mis- 

 cellaneous collection of objects more or less illustrative of 

 school work, e.g. furniture, fittings, apparatus, and dia- 

 grams, would, however, prove of little general interest and 

 value, unless it were on a very comprehensive scale. The 

 Executive Committee, therefore, have wisely decided to 

 limit the scope of the educational part of the Exhibition 

 of the present year, and to direct the attention of 

 exhibitors mainly to the elucidation of a few special 

 problems which possess exceptional importance or public 

 interest at the present time. Foremost among these are 

 the subjects of technical and scientific instruction, trade 

 and apprenticeship schools, the teaching of art, and the 

 Kindergarten with other devices for infant training. The 

 accidental association of this part of the Exhibition with 

 one devoted to the subject of health has also naturally 

 suggested another class of illustrative display likely to 

 prove particularly interesting to school managers and the 

 public at this moment. While the Executive Committee 

 has shown no disposition to encourage the absurdly 

 exaggerated and not very sincere outcry which has 

 been raised about the " over-pressure " of children in 

 schools, they have shown much judgment in giving 

 special prominence to those "exhibits" which are de- 

 signed to illustrate the conditions of healthy life in 

 schools. Accordingly, models of the best school build- 

 ings, appliances for warming, lighting, and ventilating, 

 improved desks and fittings, contrivances for securing 

 right posture for the limbs and for preventing injury to 

 eyesight, precautions against disease in schools, will be 

 largely shown. The whole subject of physical training 

 will also, it is expected, be illustrated with unusual fullness 

 and variety. Models and examples of the latest and best 

 forms of gymnastic apparatus in use in England and in 

 foreign countries will be shown ; and arrangements are 

 being made, with the sanction of the heads of the Ad- 

 miralty and of the War Office, for the practical exposition 

 of the methods of military drill in use in the great military 

 and naval schools at Chelsea and Greenwich, on certain 

 afternoons on which the boys can be spared for this pur- 

 pose from their ordinary school duties. 



The increased attention now being directed to the whole 

 subject of infant training ; the extended interest taken by 

 the best teachers in the study of the methods of Frobel ; 

 and the recognition by the Education Department for the 

 first time, in Air. Mundella's Code, of the need of training, 

 object lessons, recreation, and varied employment in infant 

 schools, as well as instruction in reading, writing, and 

 arithmetic, have justified the appropriation of a consider- 

 able space to the Kindergarten, and to the exhibition of 

 pictures, games, manual exercises, and apparatus specially 

 adapted for the training of very young children, whether 

 in schools or nurseries. There is reason to believe that 

 this department of the display will be especially full and 

 interesting, and will comprise some of the latest and most 

 ingenious of the devices for infant discipline which are in 

 use in Germany and Switzerland, as well as in our own 

 country. 



Closely connected also with the general design of 

 the Exhibition to show how school-life may be made 

 healthier, brighter, happier, and more interesting, there 

 will be a considerable display of pictures and school de- 



corations. The " Art for Schools Association " and other 

 exhibitors will seek to show how the school-room may be 

 incidentally useful in improving the taste and stimulating 

 the imagination of the scholars ; and it may be hoped 

 that many teachers will gather from the Exhibition some 

 fruitful suggestions as to the manner in which art may 

 give added reality and force to lessons on history, on 

 descriptive geography, on the facts of science, and on the 

 life of the ancient world. 



The London, Birmingham, and other School Boards 

 have arranged for collective displays of their best fittings, 

 desks, and other apparatus. Illustrations and models of 

 school kitchens, cookery schools, and the latest appliances 

 for the practical teaching of domestic economy will be 

 tolerably numerous ; and special pains have been taken 

 by those members of the Education Committee who have 

 recently served on the Technical Instruction Commission 

 to procure some of the most characteristic illustrations of 

 the methods of technical and industrial teaching in use 

 in the trade and apprentice schools of the Continent. 



There will be a library and reading room attached to 

 the educational department of the Exhibition ; and a large 

 collection of the newest text-books, treatises, diagrams, 

 and works of reference' having relation to the subject of 

 the Exhibition will be so arranged that they may easily be 

 consulted by visitors. 



One very interesting feature of the whole programme 

 will be found in the plan— not yet fully matured— for an 

 International Congress or series of Conferences to be held 

 in connection with the Exhibition during the first week in 

 August. A large attendance of delegates from foreign 

 countries is expected, and some of the most important 

 educational problems of the day will be discussed. The 

 sub-Committee, which has spent much time in arranging 

 the details, is representative in its character, and consists 

 of Lord Reay, the Hon. L. Stanley, two of the Senior 

 Inspectors of Schools, Mr. Sharpe and Mr. J. G. Fitch, 

 Archdeacon Emery, the Rev. Dr. Graham of the Ham- 

 mersmith Training College, Mr. Storr, Mr. Magnus, Mr. 

 St. John Ackers, and Dr. Rigg. So far as the arrange- 

 ments have yet been published, they promise to provide a 

 series of valuable public discussions, by persons of 

 authority in their special departments, on the organisation 

 of primary, secondary, and university education ; on the 

 conditions of health and physical development in schools ; 

 on the professional training of teachers, the testing of 

 their qualifications, and the public recognition of those 

 qualifications ; on several special departments of instruc- 

 tion, e.g. infant training, art teaching, science and technical 

 teaching ; and on museums, libraries, and other subsidiary- 

 agencies by which the influence of the school may be 

 extended to the home life, to leisure, and to the means of 

 self-improvement. 



NOTES 



The Council of the Royal Society have selected the following 

 fifteen candidates to be recommended for election at the annual 

 meeting on June 12 next: — Prof. George Johnston Allman, 

 LL.D., Trof. Isaac Bayley Balfour, D.Sc, Joseph Baxendell, 

 F.K.A.S., James Bell, F.I.C., Prof. Walter Noel Hartley, 

 F.R.S.E., Prof. Alexander Stewart Herschel, M.A., Wilfrid 

 H. Hudleston, M.A., Prof. Horace Lamb, M. A., Prof. John 

 G. McKendrick, M.D., Arthur Ransome, M.D., Prof. Charles 

 Smart Roy, M.D., Prof. Arthur William Rucker, M. A., Joseph 

 John Thomson, B.A., Lieut. -Col. Charles Warren, C.M.G., 

 and Prof. Morrison Watson, M.D. 



The following three savants were elected Foreign Members ot 

 the Linnean Society at the last meeting, May 1 :— Dr. Ernst 

 Haeckel, Professor of Zoology and Director of the Zoological 

 Institut, Museum, University of Jena, among other things well 

 known for his studies of Sponges, Radiolarians, Medusae, &c. ; 



