)9« 



NA TURE 



[Ai'kiL 20, 1899 



lion ■' ihe Connni>si*'ners understand to be meant an institution 

 for general education or for any special kind of education, 

 which is not carried on for private gain or profit. Applications 

 stating the applicants' qualifications should be addressed to the 

 Secretary, Mr. T. Bailey Saunders, at the othce of the Com- 

 mission, 32 Abingdon Street, Westminster, S.W., on or before 

 Saturday, May 13, 1S99. I' will, it is added, be convenient if 

 teachers and lecturers in physics, chemistry, or other subjects, 

 effective instruction in which requires laboratories and expensive 

 apparatus, would state what resources of that character they 

 have at their disposal. Teachers or lecturers on whose behalf 

 applications have already been made by their colleges or schools 

 need not repeat them. 



At a meeting held in University College, Bristol, on Thurs- 

 day last, the Bishop of Hereford, President of the College, being 

 in the chair, it was decided to found a University College Colston 

 Society, holding an annual dinner in the same manner as the 

 Grateful Dolphin, and Anchor Societies, but with a distinctly 

 educational aim. It was pointed out by the Bishop of Bristol 

 that not only were the Colston benefactions to education larger 

 than to all other objects combined, but that the sums devoted to 

 this object in Bristol by Kdward Colston were larger than those 

 which have given origin to the existing annuities and doles. It 

 is hoped that a Colston endowment fund may thus be raised, and 

 scholarships instituted to enable girls and boys who have shown 

 promise to pass on to the College from schools and other institu- 

 tions in the city. The University College has recently fallen heir to 

 a legacy of 5000/. bequeathed by the late Mr. Stuckey Lean. 

 This will probably be devoted to a much-needed extension of 

 buildings. Both the Bishop of Hereford and the Bishop of 

 Bristol expressed opinions favourable to the establishment in the 

 near future of that University for the West of England, centred 

 in Bristol, which Sir Norman Lockyer foreshadowed when the 

 British Association recently met in that city. We cannot but 

 believe that the citizens of Bristol will speedily follow the lead 

 set them by the citizens of Birmingham, and lake active steps to 

 enable those who have the cause of higher education in the West 

 of England at heart to realise the ideal thus placed before them. 



On Saturday last, in opening a new county school established 

 at Presteign under the Welsh Intermediate Education Act, the 

 Duke of Devonshire referred to the part he played in educational 

 affairs. He remarked that he had on previous occasions had to 

 protest against the assumption which seemed to have been made 

 that he was, or professed to be in any degree, an educational 

 expert. That was not the least the case. An educational ex- 

 pert should be a person who had himself received a very large 

 and extensive education, and who had, in addition, devoted 

 himself to the study of education, which was in itself a science 

 and a profession. To neither of these could he lay the smallest 

 claim. If, without the slightest pretension on his part, he had 

 assumed to be in any sense an education advocate, it was be- 

 cause he had been (or some considerable period deeply impressed 

 with the national importance of the better training of the people 

 in one branch, ami that a very limited branch, of education — 

 that was to say, in the teaching of science and of art as applied 

 to our industries and to our commercial position. He had seen 

 in many ways the close connection which existed between the 

 discoveries and teaching of science and the efficiency and pros- 

 perity of our industries. He had seen how other countries 

 appeared to be more alive to the existence of this close connection 

 than we were ourselves, how in other countries the imparting 

 of this kind of instruction had been made more the business of 

 the Slate, and how they had lx.en able to induce iheir people 

 more fully to take advantage of the opportunities for this kind 

 of education than we had hitherto succeeded in doing. But to 

 see the necessity for this kind of technical training of the people, 

 and to suggest the means by which it was to be provided, were 

 two very different matters ; and, although he had done his best 

 to impress the views which he had formed on this subject on his 

 fellow-countrymen, he had never professed, and he did not 

 profess, to be an expert adviser as to the manner in which this 

 technical training should be applied to our people. 



Referring to the Board of Education Bill, the Duke of Devon- 

 shire said it had been his duty to bring in a Bill the object of 

 which was the better organisation of education, and especially 

 of secondary education. He thought the interests of the 

 measure, which he believed to be an important one, might 

 suffer if it were to be supposed that he, in the conduct of it, 



NO. 1538, VOL. 59] 



spoke as an educational expert with theories and ideas on 

 education of his own, instead of being, as he was, merely a 

 politician and an adnunistrator charged with the duty of attempt- 

 ing to improve the organisation of our education with the 

 assistance of experts who were much better qualihed to advise 

 and to give counsel than he was himself. This might lie a good 

 system or not a giiod system, but it was our system of govern- 

 ment. We did not put a great strategist at the head of the War 

 Department, or a skilful sailor, or a great shipbuilder at the 

 head of the Admiralty. We selected ordinary statesmen or 

 politicians to control these two great departments, requiring, as 

 they did, the highest technical skill in the shape of skilled pro- 

 fessional advisers. In his opinion, it would be a very great 

 mistake indeed if we were to commit the charge of the Educa- 

 tion Department to a professor, a schoolmaster, or an educational 

 expert, however great might be the range of his studies, and 

 however much he might have devoted himself to the study of 

 the science of education. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS. 

 Wiedemann^ s Anna/en der Physik utid Chcmie, No. 2.^ 

 Propagation of electrodynamic waves along a wire, by A. 

 Sommerfeld. To approximate to practical conditions, the 

 author admits a finite thickness for the wire, and supposes it to 

 be single, straight, and infinite. He shows that when the fre- 

 quency is high and the wire thick, propagation takes place with 

 nearly the velocity of light ; but when that is not the case, the 

 rate may be only three-quarters of that. All the occurrences 

 are confined to a surface layer of the wire not more than o'l 

 mm. thick. — Polarisation and hysteresis in dielectric media, by 

 W. Schaufelberger. The loss of energy by hysteresis in a 

 paraffin ellipsoid oscillating in an electrostatic field is pro- 

 portional to the square of the electric force. Ebonite is, in 

 comparison, a very imperfect dielectric. — Proportionality of 

 emission and absorption, by W. N'oigt. The author attempts 

 to provide a theoretical foundation for Kirchhoffs law. He is 

 obliged to assume the coexistence of irregular and heterogeneous 

 waves, since regular wave-trains would not obey the law. — 

 Canal rays, by .V. Wehnelt. A mica cross introduced into the 

 dark kathode space casts a shadow upon the kathode itself, 

 thus proving that rays proceed from the anode to the 

 kathode. Further, it is extremely probable that no kathode 

 rays are given out except where anode rays impinge 

 upon the kathode. When they penetrate the kathode, we 

 have Goldstein's '■cai>al rays." — -A new method of detecting 

 electric waves, by .•\. Neugschwcnder. .\ slit is cut in the 

 silver surface of a mirror, and the latter is placed in circuit with 

 a cell and galvanometer. No current is indicated until the 

 mirror is breathed upon. But the deflection that is then shown 

 is immediately annulled by the imp.^ct of electric waves upon 

 the mirror. Conductivity is restored when the waves cease, 

 provided there is a source of moisture, say a wet sponge, near 

 the galvanometer. — Isolation of long heat rays by quartz prisms, 

 by H. Rubens and E. -•Vschkinass. The extremely long heat 

 rays obtained by successive reflections at surfaces of rocksalt and 

 sylvine are transmitted by quartz, and their refractive index is 

 thus easily determined. It is extremely high, being 2"I9 for 

 waves 56 11 long. — Continuity of the electric discharge in rarefied 

 air, by Mr. Cantor. The author employs the coherer to test 

 the continuity of the vacuum discharge under conditions where 

 Hertz pronounced them to be absolutely continuous. In every 

 case waves were given out by the tubes. But it is still jMssible 

 that part of the discharge may have been continuous. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Entomological Society, .April 5. — Mr. ll. H. Verrall, 

 President, in ilie lii.iii. Mr. Blandford exhibited insects of 

 diflerent orders collected by Dr. .\lbert L. Bennett in West 

 .Africa, and read some notes by Dr. Bennett on the habits of 

 the Goliath beetles. Mr, McLachlan exhibited young larvx of 

 a "locust," received from Mr. E. A. Eloyer, Director-General 

 of Telegraphy in Egypt, and said by him to have caused the 

 Calotropis trees in Nubia to be in a moribund condition. The 



