316 
NATURE 
| dug. 18, 1870 
many places it looks like a miniature plantation, and is a serious 
detriment to the pasture. Inan equal degree the elms have exhi- 
bited the same tendency to throw up an infinite number of 
shoots, and I am curious to know whether I am right in con- 
sidering it to be due to the great heat of the surface of the soil. 
C, J. ROBINSON 
A Natural Fernery 
NEAR where I am writing, in this parish (East Woodhay) is 
a deep hollow lane, with high sloping banks, which are abun- 
dantly clothed with the following ferns (nomenclature and ar- 
rangement from Dr. Hooker's new ‘‘ Flora”) :—Fveris aquilina, 
Lomaria spicant (rare), Asplenium Adiantum-nigrum, A. filix- 
femina, Scolopendrium vulgare, Aspidium aculeatum, A. angu- 
lare, Nephrodium filix-mas (with several pretty barren varieties), 
and Folypodium vulgare. Although the ferns are of the most 
common species, yet from the sloping nature of the ground, and 
the intermixing of a few other plants, such as Zguisetum syl- 
vaticum, Lactuca muralis (very fine), Digitalis purpurea, Cam- 
panula Trachelium, Hypericum pulchrum, Funcus glaucus and 
comipressus, With a few pretty Rose and Ludi, tend to make it 
the most charming bit of fern scenery that I have ever fallen in 
with. 
HENRY REEKS 
The Science and Art Department 
In your impression of the 4th you have touched npon a point 
which has of late interested me much, viz., the science teaching 
of the ‘Science and Art Department.” 
At the commencement of the article you say that the work 
done is so little known that you have ventured its history. If 
you will allow me a small portion of your valuable space, I will 
put before your readers a few facts concerning the said ‘‘ De- 
partment.” 
The teachers in the employ of the Department have no fixed 
salary ; payments are made upon results to those persons who 
have passed in the first or second class (advanced stage) in the 
subject or subjects in which they give instruction, or who have 
passed in ‘* Honours,” 
Now, a teacher’s certificate is by no means difficult to obtain 
(advanced stage), provided Honours are not tried for, and conse- 
quently there is a large number of low-class teachers in the 
ranks, or those who are only grounded in elements of the subject 
which they are certificated to teach. For instance, a pupil on 
entering in 1869 for the examination and taking a second class in 
the advanced stage is entitled to teach and earn payments on 
results ; such a teacher may only be grounded in the elements of 
the subject (say chemistry), and when he is applied to for the 
solution of a problem governed by physical laws he is at a loss 
and the pupil gets no answer to his query. It is my opinion that 
the teachers’ examinations are much too easy. I think a certifi- 
cate ought not to be granted unless the candidate has shown that 
he is familiar with the subject he intends to teach, and also with 
the cognate sciences. A chemistry teacher should know, at 
least, light and heat, magnetism and electricity ; but at present 
such knowledge is not required. 
I am not speaking specially fcr chemistry ; geometry I may 
instance. There are many teachers at present engaged in giving 
instruction who know nota jot of Euclid’s elements, nor can they 
work out the simplest algebraical problem. Should not a ¢éeacher 
know the theory as well as the practice, so as to give’a definite and 
true answer to a pupil’s inquiries. Machine drawingis the same ; 
the examination consists of mere copying, and I can safely say 
that there are many teachers of mechanical drawing who would 
not be able to answer a single question of the paper set by the 
Society of Arts’ examiner. 
Science-teaching is daily becoming more and more appreciated, 
in some districts, however, only but very slowly ; and I think it 
is only right that those teachers who do take an interest in science 
should endeavour to keep up the standard of the teacher. I should 
like to see every teacher obliged to pass in Honours—then the 
chemist would not pass without a thorough knowledge of physics, 
neither would the teacher of plane and solid geometry escape so 
easily, nor the pseudo-machinist obtain a certificate in a subject 
he was not competent to teach. But we must look at science as 
now taughtfrom another point of view. It is for the encouragement 
of science among artisans (designated in the Scéence Directory as 
“* the industrial classes’’) that the payments are made to teachers, 
the teachers not being able to claim any sum upon those which 
do not strictly come under that denomination. 
Now, in the branch of chemistry some important rules have 
lately been made : candidates for the advanced stage are to be 
taught qualitative analysis, and each is to be supplied with a 2/. 
set of apparatus, the artisan cannot afford to supply it himself; 
the institution, or other place where the class meets, has only 
just enough funds to enable it to keep its head above water—who 
is then to supplyit? The teacher ; but often he will not see his 
way clear, for if he supplies it, 50 per cent. only is allowed him 
if the candidate obtains a first class. The pecuniary result to a 
teacher then is—for passing a student in the first class 1/., and 
in the second a loss of 1/., so therefore it will be advantageous 
for a teacher to keep his pupils out of the advanced stage 
altogether. If the authorities continue to let the rule stand, I 
should think payments would be allowed on middle-class students, 
as they are the only ones who probably could provide them with 
the apparatus. 
It is all very well to say that an artisan, if he take sufficient 
interest in the science, zwz// provide himself with the apparatus, 
but it generally happens that the willing ones are those who have 
the least opportunity of doing what they wish. 
The past session has been a trying one for all teachers, for not 
only have the payments been reduced, but, to make up the list of 
evils, the standard has been raised, and consequently fewer have 
passed. The current session seems to be attended by as many 
drawbacks, which, if not withdrawn or somewhat modified, will, 
in the opinion ot the majority of teachers, produce injurious 
results. 
An ‘‘Honours CERTIFICATED SCIENCE TEACHER” 
The Intended Engineering College 
WILL youallow me a small space in NATURE to call atten- 
tion to a subject which seems tome to require the serious con- 
sideration of everyone who is interested in the progress of science 
in this country ? 
In reply to a question put to him in the House of Commons 
by Mr. Plunket, on the 9th instant, Mr. Grant Duff is reported 
to have said that it is the intention of Government to establish 
an engineering college for the Indian service, to be entered by 
competitive examination. Mr. Grant Duff does not appear to 
have entered into any detail with regard to the instruction to be 
given in the intended college, but it is fair to assume that Go- 
vernment would not think it worth while to take the education of 
engineers for India into its own hands, except with the inten- 
tion of giving them a thorough and systematic training, at least 
as complete as what is already supplied by existing institutions. 
In this case, the instruction to be given in the new college will 
embrace at least a three years’ course of study devoted to pure 
and applied mathematics, mechanics, physics, chemistry, geology, 
and the principles of engineering, in addition to the actual 
practice in the drawing office and workshop. That is to say, the 
Government school of engineering will be, on this supposition, 
what the Government School of Mines has become, in the main, 
a school of pure science. 
Now, in view of this probability, the question suggests itself— 
whether it is fair and just that institutions like University College 
and King’s College in London, and Owens College in Man- 
chester,* which, without Government support or help of any 
kind, offer precisely the kind of training which we suppose the 
new college is intended to impart, should have to compete with 
an institution supported by Government prestige and Government 
money. ‘The answer to this question affects not merely the inte- 
rests of private institutions, such as those which have been men- 
tioned, but, so far as the existence of these institutions is a benefit 
to the general public, it affects the interests of the whole nation ; 
for in the case of colleges which depend for all or much of their 
income upon the general demand for education, their efficiency 
and their power to supply teaching of the highest kind, cannot 
but be seriously interfered with, if they are to be deprived of all 
share in the training of a class of pupils numerous enough to 
induce the Government to found a separate college for them alone. 
The course which Government proposes to adopt would, it seems to 
me, be justifiable only if the existing colleges were inefficient, and 
it had a clear prospect of establishing a more successful institu- 
tion. AsIhavethe honour tobe connected with one of the Colleges 
in question, I do not intend to discuss their merits further than 
* The Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh might also be referred to 
although they do receive sume amvunt of aid from the public funds. 
