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NovVEMBER 23, 1916] 
NATURE 
241 
Ow1ne to the increasing interest shown by the pub- 
lic in hygiene and public health, more especially 
in the national question of the saving of ‘child and 
infant life,’ the governing body of the Battersea Poly- 
technic has decided to open the Hygiene Department 
for public inspection on Saturday, November 25, from 
3 to 6 p.m. The lecture-rooms and laboratories, to- 
gether with an exhibition of apparatus and models 
used for teaching purposes, will be on view. No 
tickets of admission are required. 
In consequence of so many probable competitors for 
the Fairchild Scholarship and prizes of the Pharma- 
ceutical Society having been called to the colours, the 
trustees of the scholarship have decided that the exam- 
ination for the awards shall not be held in 1917. It 
has also been decided that an arrangement shall be 
made by which those who are on service who would 
be eligible for the 1917 scholarship may, if they shall 
so desire, be admitted to an examination after the 
War. 
In August, 1915, the Board of Education gave notice 
that after 1916 the Lower General Examinations would 
no longer be held in any subjects of science and tech- | 
nology, but that the Higher General Examinations 
would for the present be continued. It is now an- 
nounced that no Lower Examinations will be held in 
1917, but that the Board of Education hopes to hold 
next year Higher Examinations in accordance with 
its regulations and syllabuses of 1916. After 1917 no 
Higher Examinations: will be held in pure mathe- 
matics, theoretical. mechanics, heat, magnetism and 
electricity, organic chemistry, coal-mining, and 
metallurgy. 
RECENT issues of Science have recorded a number of 
bequests to higher education in the United States. The 
more important of these are as follows :—Yale Univer- 
sity has received some 137,000l. from the estate of the 
late Mr. J. S. Hotchkiss; under the will of Mr. W. W. 
Lawrence, of Pittsburgh, Princeton University will 
ultimately receive 125,cool.; under the will of the 
late president of the University of Pennsylvania 
Museum, Mr. E. B. Coxe, junior, the University was 
bequeathed 100,000!. as an endowment of the museum, 
and 20,o00l. towards increasing the salaries of pro- 
fessors; Columbia University has received 20,000. 
from Mr. J. N. Jarvie for the new dental school; and 
the University of California 14,o00l. from Prof. G. H. 
Howison and his wife. The General Education Board 
of the Rockefeller Foundation has undertaken to pro- 
vide 40,00cl. to complete the 200,0001. endowment fund 
which Vassar College is raising. 
Tue British Prisoners of War Book Scheme (Educa- 
tional) makes an urgent appeal for books on natural 
history and scientific subjects generally, to meet actual 
requests received from British prisoners (soldiers, 
sailors, and civilians) interned in enemy or neutral 
countries. Among the special books asked for this 
week are :—‘ Cambridge Natural History ’’; ‘‘ British 
Fresh-Water Algze’’ (West); ‘Fungus Diseases of 
Trees’’ (Hartog); ‘‘ History of European Fauna” 
(Scharff); ‘Mammalia’? (Beddard); ‘t Mammalia of 
India” (Blanford); and “Birds of India’ (Jerdon), 
Books of a modern and advanced character are also 
needed in forestry, electrical engineering, motor 
engineering, telegraphy, wireless telegraphy, minera- 
logy, and veterinary science. Readers who may be 
able and willing to contribute one or more of the 
above works to this war charity are invited to forward 
to Mr. A. T. Davies, at the Board of Education, 
Whitehall, London, S.W., a list of the books they can 
offer. They will then be notified as to the acceptance 
of their gifts. Further particulars of the book scheme 
may also be had on application to Mr. Davies. 
NO. 2456, VOL. 98] 
| Tue incidence of infant mortality, especially in urban, 
districts, has emphasised the urgent need for greater 
efforts directed to the protection of infant life. Among 
| the agencies for securing this aim systematic instruc- 
' tion in the hygiene of child-life occupies an important 
' place. Voluntary societies exist through which much 
work has already been done, and the Local Govern- 
| ment Board for Ireland has recently issued a circular 
letter outlining a scheme dealing with maternity and 
child welfare, in aid of which a grant of 5o000/. has 
been made available. ‘To ensure due co-operation be- 
tween medical and other public officers on one hand 
and voluntary workers on the other, and to render 
the work of the latter efficient and effective, the 
Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction 
for Ireland has prepared and circulated a syllabus 
of instruction in child hygiene. The Department is 
prepared to consider the recognition of classes in the 
syllabus conducted by local technical instruction, and 
other approved, committees, and in certain circum- 
| stances to pay grants in aid. The instruction must be 
under the direction of a qualified medical practitioner 
' and a trained nurse, but recognition may be extended 
to other suitable persons. If desired, the Department 
is prepared to conduct an examination at the close of 
a course of instruction, and to award certificates of 
proficiency. 
Aw article on ‘*‘ Science in the School,” in the Times 
Educational Supplement, by Sir Clifford Allbutt, may 
be commended to the thoughtful consideration of head- 
masters and others. The notion of some headmasters 
that it is sufficient to introduce science in a school 
as a ‘‘complementary "’ subject is unsparingly pilloried. 
The methods of science must permeate the curriculum, 
since, as the article urges, they pertain ** to all spheres 
of knowledge and wisdom, natural and humane, a 
leaven rather than an ingredient.’ The cry of what 
is to be taught to boys is of less importance than the 
vision of how things are to be taught. In young boys 
“the brain-web is built, not by reflecting, but by 
doing.”’ The qualities wanted of young men in the 
greater world are spontaneity, initiative, ready wits 
in tight places, all of which depend upon structures in 
the brain, organised, not by reading, but by former 
activities. Affirming these things, Sir Clifford Allbutt 
reiterates ‘‘science is a method, a method to inform,’ 
not our studies of material things only, but all studies, 
material, social, and spiritual.”” It is good to find the 
article insisting that before we can have good teaching 
we must have trained teachers; it would have been 
better if it had been added that we must have reason- 
ably paid teachers. The suitable form of science 
teaching for various classes in the ‘school is described, 
and altogether the essay should assist the anxious 
headmaster. It is a pity, however, that Sir Clifford 
Allbutt seems not to have acquainted himself with the 
work of the many secondary schools which have been 
developed since the Education Act of 1902. There at 
least the boys study mensuration in the practical way 
he suggests, and much work in experimental science of 
a sane kind is being accomplished. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
LonpDon. 
Royal Society, November 9.—Sir J. J. Thomson, 
president, in the chair.—W. M. Bayliss: Methods of 
raising a low arterial pressure. When the arterial 
pressure is low from loss of blood it cannot be brought 
back, except to a certain degree, by the injection ol 
saline solutions into the veins in quantity equal to that 
of the blood lost. But if the viscosity of such solutions 
is made equal to that of blood, a return to normal 
height is possible. The effect of saline injections con- 
taining gum or gelatine is also much more lasting than 
