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June 18. A section will be devoted to scientific apparatus 
constructed by teachers and pupils. The Board, in including 
this section has in view the possibility that, by encouraging 
the construction of apparatus by its teachers and pupils, it 
may be possible to reduce the present heavy accounts for 
scientific apparatus and also that, at the same time, it may 
assist in familiarising the pupils with the practical use of 
apparatus. The sight of apparatus of a cheap and ‘‘ home- 
made” character will be the means of encouraging the study of 
practical science at home. 
ENCOURAGEMENT is being given to the study of natural 
history or nature-study in many districts. A programme has 
been sent to us of a series of Saturday afternoon rambles 
organised for the benefit of teachers by the Technical Instruction 
Committee of the Essex County Council. Conducted in the 
sympathetic spirit of the true student of animate nature, the ex- 
cursions may be made a source of pleasure and profit to all who 
participate in them, but great care must be taken to prevent 
them from becoming expeditions of extermination. Prof. Miall 
points out this danger in a letter to the third number of the 
Nature-Study Journal published by the South-Eastern Agri- 
cultural College, Wye. The journal also contains short papers 
on uses of the balance, the metamorphosis of frogs, bees and 
flower shapes. 
Lorp Rosesery referred to the Education Bill in his address 
at Leeds on Friday last. He summed up the Bill by saying 
that ‘‘it discountenances efficiency in primary education, 
rewards inefficiency, starves secondary education, and ignores 
altogether the training of teachers.” Education, he urged, is a 
national and Imperial duty, and its development should not be 
dependent upon local rates. The Bill provides that municipal 
authorities may apply the balance of the ‘‘ whisky money,” 
and may spend up to a twopenny rate in order to provide for the 
higher secondary and technical education so urgently needed in 
this country. This is not only inadequate in amount, but 
unsound in principle, and, remarked Lord Rosebery, ‘‘ the 
putting of education on the rates is perhaps the surest method 
that the Government could have chosen for restraining the 
educational development of this country.” 
New regulations for secondary day schools have been issued 
by the Board of Education. The schools will be in two 
divisions—one containing what have hitherto been designated 
schools of science or organised science schools ; and the other, 
secondary schools having courses in which science is given fair 
attention. The schools in Division A must provide a thorough 
and progressive course in science, together with the subjects of 
a general education. The obligatory subjects are mathematics, 
physics, chemistry, drawing and practical geometry; and not 
less than fifteen hours per week must be allotted to instruction 
in them, of which not more than five hours are to be given to 
mathematics. Practical work must be done in every science 
subject. On the completion of the elementary course, students 
may select physical, mechanical or biological courses, such as 
have been carried on for some time in schools of science. In 
Division B of secondary day schools, not less than nine hours 
a week must be given to science instruction in forms for which 
grants will be made. The instruction must be both theoretical 
and practical, and the laboratories must be suitably equipped 
for the subjects sanctioned. 
THE executive committee of the National Association for the 
Promotion of Technical and Secondary Education adopted the 
following resolutions referring to the Government Education 
Bill at a meeting held on May 30:—(1) That this executive 
committee, while expressing no opinion on the more contro- 
versial aspects of the Education Bill relating to elementary 
education, regards it as essential to the interests of technical and 
secondary education, (a) that the fund available under the 
Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act, 1890, should be 
permanently appropriated by the Bill and devoted by the local 
authorities to the purposes of technical and secondary education ; 
(4) that the areas of administrative control over technical and 
secondary education by local education authorities should, as 
provided by the Bill, continue to be the administrative counties 
and county boroughs or combinations of such areas. (2) The 
executive committee also considers it highly desirable, 
(a) that clauses 3 and 15 should be so amended as not to 
deprive any local authorities of the power they now possess to 
levy a penny rate for the purposes of technical and secondary 
education ; (4) that the local authorities should be represented 
NO. 1701, VOL. 66] 
NATURE 
[JUNE 5, 1902 
on the governing bodies of all institutions to which grants are 
made. 
Iv has already been announced that Mr. Alfred Mosely has 
arranged to send out to America two commissions of inquiry— 
one to study methods of education in their bearing on commer- 
cial and indu,trial efficiency, and the other industrial organisa- 
tion and thejproblems of labour and capital. We learn from 
the Zzmes that Mr. Mosely has just returned from the United 
States, where, in conjunction with President Butler, of Columbia 
University, he has settled the provisional itinerary of the educa- 
tional commission. The exact date when this commission will 
start has not yet been decided. The programme arranged by 
President Butler seems to be of an exceedingly instructive and 
comprehensive character. Among the places to be visited are 
New York, with Columbia University, Auchmuty trade schools, 
the Educational Alliance, the University Settlement Society 
and the Normal College; New Haven, Conn., where Yale 
University will be inspected ; Boston, with Harvard University 
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Philadelphia, 
for the University, the Drexel Institute, the Manual Training 
Schools and the Commercial Museum; Baltimore, where the 
Johns Hopkins University and Hospital will be seen ; Wash- 
ington, for the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum and 
the Department of Agriculture ; Pittsburgh, with the Carnegie 
Museum ; Chicago, with the University, the School of Educa- 
tion, Prof. Dewey’s University School and the Armour and 
Lewis Institutes; and Ithaca, N.Y., where Cornell University 
will be visited. 
Four years ago an important gift was bestowed on the 
University of Paris, but it seems to have attracted little public 
attention. The Minister of War having decided to abandon 
three of the bastions constructed at the south frontier of the 
Parisian fortifications, generously placed them at the disposal of 
the University of Paris for the purpose of higher education. 
Each bastion represents about 3000 square metres of site. The 
council of the University determined to devote two of these 
to extending the facilities of the Faculty of Science and the third 
to the use of the Faculty of Medicine, and on these areas 
buildings suitable for the new installations required in connection 
with the above Faculties, which in the absence of a site cannot 
be erected in the centre of Paris, were to have been built. 
But though, with the intention of proceeding to erect the 
necessary -buildings, the gift of the Minister of War was 
immediately accepted by the Faculties of Science and Medicine, 
funds voted for the purpose, and designs prepared by the 
architect of the Sorbonne, nothing has yet been done in the way 
of building. This delay is, it appears, the result of numerous 
objections which have been raised in different quarters. Ina 
recent number of the Revue générale des Sciences these objections 
are answered in detail, and it is shown that it would be a great 
pity from the point of view of facilities for scientific research if 
the unhoped for chance of fine large laboratories on the 
outskirts of Paris was, even provisionally, abandoned. 
SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
CAMBRIDGE. 
Philosophical Society, May 5.—Dr. J. Larmor, vices 
president, in the chair.—Regeneration in Samza azlanthus, by 
Mr. H. H. Brindley. With the object of ascertaining the 
degree of regeneration and how far it is uniform in the imago 
after injury to the larva in particular stadia and to particular 
extents, amputation experiments were made on the legs of this 
moth in larva. Owing to the large number of cases in which 
the imago did not emerge the results were somewhat limited, 
but sufficient instances were observed to suggest (a) that com- 
pared with Orthoptera and other non-pupating forms the results 
of injury are very variable, (4) that the earlier the instar injured 
the imaginal limb more closely approaches the normal in form 
and size, (c) there is no uniformity in the presence of the 
terminal claw apparatus without regard to the number of limb 
joints such as has been observed in Arachnids, Myriapods and 
several orders of non-pupating insects, and (@) that the length 
of time spent in pupa and the degree of injury to the larval 
limb seem not to influence the degree of regeneration. As 
regards (4) the results are in general accord with those of 
Newport on Vanessa and Chapman on Liparis, though not as 
regards (c) with Newport. The experimental evidence obtained 
also seems to confirm Gonin’s opinion, based on anatomical 
