318 
NATURE 
| Fed. 1, 1883 
about his domestic relations—possibly not understood by , 
many of his foreign admirers and friends. Married late | 
in life—and even in his very youth never having had much 
place in his mind for love—still his agreeable and quiet cha- 
racter, his inexhaustible kindness, his open frank cordiality, 
which so often secured the sympathy of others, seemed to 
promise an abiding union between him and his wife, but 
the liberal ideas of the husband, and his devotion to | 
his very peculiar studies, did not please Madame Bernard. | 
The state of things became irritable—intolerable ; even | 
the birth of two children did not improve the condition of | 
affairs. In 1869 the separationcame. The husband and | 
the father was left alone; and from then to the end of | 
his days he lived his solitary life in an apartment in the | 
rue des Ecoles, vs a vis to the College of France. His | 
life was all too full of work to leave much time for a morbid 
appreciation of his solitude. Some slight rest was taken | 
each year at the vintage period at Saint Julien, near 
Villefranche, and he almost every year took part in the 
French Association for the Advancement of Science, an 
Association which he assisted in founding, and of which 
he was the first president. During these latter ten years 
Bellesme was his very constant visitor, his trusty friend. 
They were times not to be recalled, he tells us, with- 
out emotion, and he regards them as among the happiest 
of his life. Often he would spend the evening with him by his 
fire-sideinthe small bedroom, where by preference he would 
pass the afternoon, and which his old servant would keep 
with a quite canonical neatness. In the background was 
the bed with its curtains of blue damask, to the left the 
fireplace ; at the side of the bed, a large armchair in 
which Claude Bernard would sit enveloped in a dressing- 
gown, which, on his ample shoulders, took the folds and 
plaits of an ancient toga; his head covered with a cap, 
which he would often remove while talking, with an action 
peculiar to him, as if his thoughts made him find it too 
tight. Close to him, opposite the fire, a small square 
table, on which the lamp is placed amidst a mountain of 
reviews, drochures, new books sent to him from all parts. | 
At this epoch of his life he read, however, but little, nor did 
he writemuch. The volumes, which were published during 
these last ten years, were composed of extempore lectures 
of his, very carefully edited. “With our feet on the 
fender,’’ writes Bellesme, “ our conversation would begin 
with the striking events of the day, but speedily we turned 
to physiology. This was almost the sole object of the 
master’s thoughts. About this he would wax eloquent, 
and speedily we would be entering on the higher regions 
of the science. These were charming excursions on the 
very mountain-tops, with the clear light of his mind illu- 
minating all the dark valleys.” No wonder that time 
was little thought of, or often altogether forgotten. 
Up to 1865 Claude Bernard’s health was excellent. 
About then he was attacked by an ill-defined chronic 
enteritis, from which, after eighteen months, he had only 
recovered. After this he had some rheumatic attacks, 
which did not frighten his friends, as he still preserved 
an alas deceitful appearance of vigorous health. Still 
nothing seemed to presage his approaching end. Towards 
the last days of 1877, after passing a long morning in the 
damp and unhealthy laboratory of the College of France, 
he returned home shivering, and with a feeling of intense 
uneasiness. The next day nephritis set in; he kept his 
room, and was not disquieted as to his state, but after a 
few days it was evident to all that his career was run, On 
February 7, 1878, after a six weeks of suffering, he lost 
all consciousness, and expired on February 10, at half- 
past nine o’clock in the evening. In Claude Bernard 
France lost a noble son, one who cultivated science 
purely and disinterestedly. His works will not ever 
perish, and in future years they will serve as a demonstra- 
tion of the excellence of the “ Discours de la Méthode,” 
and as a very sure guide towards arriving at a knowledge 
of truth, ee. 
THE FINSBURY TECHNICAL COLLEGE 
Ps Finsbury Technical College and the programme 
of instruction which we have recently received 
represent a fait accompli of the City and Guilds of 
London Institute. 
Judging of the education to be given in the new College 
from the Programme forwarded to us, we may congratu- 
late the Council of the Institute on having steered clear of 
the Scylla and Charybdis which overhang the narrow 
channel of technical education proper. In all such educa- 
tional movements, there is the dan er that the teaching 
shall either be too exclusively of the ordinary scientific 
type, or, by being too distinctly practical, shall attempt 
to take the place of workshop instruction. Theory and 
practice promise to be judiciously combined in the new 
_ school, and the experiment about to be tried in Taber- 
nacle Row is interesting not only as a new departure in 
education, but also as showing the effect of beginning 
science teaching from the practical rather than from the 
theoretical side, as is still so frequently the case. 
During the last three years the conception of the Fins- 
bury College has undergone considerable development, 
and corresponds now much more nearly to what a 
technical school should be than appeared probable at its 
inception. According to the plans published in March, 
1880, in the Report to the Governors, the College was 
to consist in the first place of chemical and physical 
laboratories only. These laboratories were to be adapted 
to instruction in various departments of applied che- 
mistry and physics, but no provision was made for the 
teaching of mechanics, drawing, or of other subjects 
which find a place in the new programme. Such a 
school would scarcely have realised the idea of a technical 
college properly so called, least of all a college for the 
instruction of artisans. It is doubtful whether many 
of the pupils who frequent the excellent classes of Prof. 
Ayrton and Prof. Armstrong are really of the artisan 
class, for which instruction was originally intended to be 
given by the City Guilds. The progress that is being 
made in the completion of the Central Institution at 
South Kensington, which is expressly intended for the 
education of a higher class of students, renders it the 
more important, in order that the two schools may not 
clash with one another, that the instruction at Finsbury 
should be not only nominally, but really, of a different 
grade, and adapted to the improvement of artizans and 
workpeo, le. 
The programme recently published shows that provi- 
sion has been made for other branches of industry be- 
sides electrical lighting and technical chemistry. 
The Technical College, Finsbury, consists really of 
two distinct schools: a day school and an evening school. 
It has for its objects the education of— 
(1) Persons of either sex who wish to receive a scien- 
tific and practical preparatory training for intermediate 
posts in industrial works. 
(2) Apprentices, journeymen, and foremen who are 
engaged during the day-time, and who desire to receive 
supplementary instruction in the art practice, and in the 
theory and principles of science connected with the 
industry in which they are engaged. 
(3) Pupils from middle class and other schools who are 
preparing for the higher scientific and technical courses 
of instruction to be pursued at the Central Institution. 
The College therefore fulfils the functions of a finishing 
technical school for those entering industrial life at a 
comparatively early age; of a supplemental school for 
those already engaged in the factory or workshop ; and 
of a preparatory school for the Central Institution. 
The College embraces the following four chief depart- 
ments : (1) Mathematical and Mechanical ; (2) Physical; 
(3) Chemical ; (4) Applied Art. 
It is under the general direction of a principal or super- 
intendent of studies; and the Council of the Institute 
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