January 26, 1899] 



NA TURE 



507 



he ihoiight was not yet quite clearly understooii, and what he 

 felt he had hitherto failed to understand himself more than in a 

 very imperfect degree, was that we could not have technical, 

 scientific, or artistic training to any great extent or in any 

 valuable degree except as part of a sound general system of 

 secondary education. We could not graft scientific or artistic 

 education upon the stunted stem of deficient elementary educa- 

 tion. On the other hand, he believed that the special study and 

 development of a sound general system of education would be 

 found to be of great and daily-increasing advantage. For this 

 reason he had seen with great satisfaction that a good deal of 

 attention had been paid during the last few weeks to a measure 

 which he had laid before Parliament last year for the purpose 

 of obtaining discussion and criticism, and which he hoped, either 

 in its former or in an altered shape, to introduce again very 

 shortly into Parliament with a view to its passage. The object 

 of that measure was to commence — it did not profess to do more 

 — the reform and reorganisation of our secondary education. 



If the provi.sions of the Bill were of a limited character, and 

 were confined to the creation of a central educational authority, 

 it was because the Government were of opinion that it was 

 best and wisest to proceed by degrees and with precaution, and 

 to put their mvn house in order before they attempted to 

 arrange the houses of other people. They admitted that a 

 great deal of the confusion and want of co-operation which 

 existed locally found its counterpart in the central departments 

 in the metropolis between the Charity Commissioners, the 

 Endowed Schools Commissioners, the Education Department, 

 and the Science and Art Department. There had not hitherto 

 been that unity of action and that thorough common under- 

 standing of objects and aims which would enable those Depart- 

 ments to give sound and practical advice to the local authorities. 

 The Covernment believed that if thev succeeded — and they 

 hoped to succeed — in uniting these educational authorities at 

 the centre into one harmonious and powerful organiisation, 

 then, without attempting to impose upon the country any 

 cast-iron system, while leaving to localities perfect freedom to 

 adapt their own educational methods to their own ends, they 

 would be able to afford them through their experts and their 

 inspectois that assistance and guidance which would enable 

 them to carry out efficiently their important duties. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Ca.mbriuge. — The \"ice-Chancellor publishes a further list of 

 donations to the Benefaction Fund, established last year, which 

 brings the total up to S557/. The list includes a donation of 

 1000/. from Lord Iveagh. Prof. Ewing has also received a 

 promise froin an anonymous donor of 500/. to be expended on 

 apparatus for the Engineering Laboratory. 



The Agricultural Science Syndicate reports that twenty-one 

 candidates have now received the University diploma in 

 Agriculture. Of these fourteen have studied in Cambridge : 

 seven are now engaged in teaching, and .seven in farming or 

 land agency. 



Cliiton Coli,ei;e has achieved remarkable success in the 

 recent examination for admission to Woolwich and Sandhurst, 

 the first place in each list having been gained by a Clifton boy 

 direct from school. This is the first examination held under 

 the new syllabus, which was so severely criticised in the papers 

 about two years ago. Though materially reduced, the scheme 

 still remains the most exacting that has yet been proposed to 

 army candidates. 



Those who are working in the cause of higher education 

 among the Mahomedans have (says the Allahabad Pioneer 

 Mail) been much encouraged by a letter that Mr. Justice 

 Budriiddin Tyabjee, of Bombay, has addressed to the Nawab 

 Mohsin-ul-Mulk, in reference to the scheme for raising the 

 College at Aligarh to the status of a Mahomedan University. 

 The learned judge, who so worthily represents Mahomedari 

 culture and enlightenment in his own Presidency, has expressed 

 warm approval of the idea, and has supported his approval 

 with an offer of a subscription of 2000 rupees towards the 

 endowment fund. 



Prok. W. A. Herd.man, F.R.S., remarks in the twelfth 

 annual report of the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee that 

 there are two practices in American universities which excite 

 NO. 1526, VOL. 59] 



the envy of professors in this country. One is the "sabbaticaj 

 year " — the one year in every seven given for purposes of travel, 

 study, and investigation. The other is the frequent endowment 

 of an expedition — or equipment of an exploring party — by an 

 individual man or woman who is interested in the subject, and 

 can give a special fund for such a purpose. The Columbia 

 University in Xew York, the Johns Hopkins L'niversity in 

 Baltimore, Yale College in Newhaven, and Harvard at Cam- 

 bridge, have all benefited immensely in the past by such ex- 

 ploring expeditions. Nearly every year of late has seen one 

 or more of such, due to private generosity, in the field ; and 

 the work they have done has both added to general scientific 

 knowledge, and has also enriched with collections the labora- 

 tories and museums of the college to which the expedition 

 belonged. 



The absurd mistakes made by school children in writing 

 ■answers to examination questions are often due to imperfect 

 teaching, and they point to the need of more rational methods of 

 instruction. The University Correspondent publishes a classi- 

 fied collection of these mistakes annually, and from the list that 

 has just appeared we select a few, not in a spirit of levity, but 

 to warn teachers who instruct children in the principles of 

 .science to be sure that their pupils comprehend their lessons. 

 In geography the following answers occur : — The North Pole is 

 a slick put in the ground by the explorer who can go farthest 

 north. —A delta is a burning mountain. —If you stand on the sea- 

 shore on a clear day, you can watch a vessel sailing round the 

 world. This is a proof that the world is round.— The Sunder- 

 bunds are the hot winds which blow across the desert of Sarah. 

 — Canons are pieces of rope the Americans catch wild horses 

 with.— A moraine is a disease which atHicts cattle in hot coun- 

 tries. The following answers, classified under mathematics 

 and science, are amusing : — A trapezium is the thing in a 

 gymnasium. — Elements are those metals which do not com- 

 bine with other things, such as earth, alumium, water, fire, 

 air, &c. — Latent heat is little particles of steam joined to- 

 gether so as you can't see them. — The solar spectrum is a group 

 of stars so called in consequence of its being nearer the sun 

 than any other group. — The stomach is the most diluted part of 

 the elementary canal. — Wind is that which the dust blows along 

 the street. 



Mr. James Stuart, M.P., delivered an address at St. 

 Andrews University on Monday, the occasion being his instal- 

 lation as Rector of the LTniversity. In the course of his 

 remarks he pointed out that much of the trade and commerce 

 of the country was now under conditions in which the know- 

 ledge it was based on could be with advantage submitted to 

 ordinary scientific treatment. But trade and commerce were 

 still outside the pale of their University system, and those who 

 followed them had to content themselves with the crumbs 

 which fell from other tables. From the Universities' own point 

 of view it daily became more necessary to provide new outlets 

 for their students. There was undoubtedly an increased and 

 increasing demand by those who wanted to learn that they 

 should be taught subjects which bore upon their every-day life 

 —sanitary science, physiology, anatomy, geology, chemistry of 

 the arts, electricity, political economy, the history of trade and 

 of their colonies, and modern languages. Many wanted those 

 things who did not care for Latin or Greek or pure mathematics, 

 and it would not do for the Universities to sit down and say, 

 "We will not teach you these things because they are not 

 academic subjects." They should not fear the curriculum 

 being too full ; students could always select for themselves 

 what they wanted to study, and they ought to strive to give men 

 wide chances of knowing what the state of knowledge was. 

 There was more spent on trade and manufacture in some single 

 towns in Germany now than in all broad Scotland put together. 

 Their education in trade and manufacture was miserably 

 behind, and yet this was at a moment when everything in the 

 national race depended on such education. No one who had 

 compared the advance of Germany in education with their own 

 stagnation, even during the last quarter of a century, could 

 fail to tremble at the insecurity in which this nation stood. It 

 \\ as his opinion, as one who had watched this for long, that it was 

 not too much to say that commercial and trade decay lay before 

 them unless they could pull themselves together in this matter. 

 They pottered over night schools, and this or that piece of 

 technical teaching. They were altogether on a wrong scale. 

 Where their competitors were spending thousands of pounds 

 they were spending dozens of half-pence. 



