March 26, 1908J 



NA TURE 



50 r 



exemplify tlic idea and to let schoolboys know how the 

 daily arithmetic of the laboratory and of the workshop is 

 carried out. Masters should also find them useful for 

 curve tracing on squared paper, as the coordinates of any 

 parabola or rectangular hyperbola, or of any curve re- 

 presenting the law of inverse squares, can be read ofT from 

 the rule with a single setting of the slide. 



With such inexpensive slide-rules it is to be hoped that 

 the makers will in time provide two spare slides at a 

 slight additional cost. For instance, one should be divided 

 so as to give sines and tangents ; the second should have 

 a scale of equal parts to give logarithms and a loj; log or 

 P line for exponential calculations. They might also with 

 advantage print on the back of the rule constants that are 

 frequently required, but at no extra cost. 



With such extra slides the master would be able to illus- 

 trate further curve tracing, and the line of sines would be 

 specially useful in the optical class for reading off angles 

 of incidence and of refraction with any refractive index, or 

 for showing the necessity of total internal reflection when 

 the scale of sines stops short of the number representing 

 the refractive index. He would also find it useful in 

 solving triangles. 



UNIVERSITY AXD EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Camhriooe.— Dr. G. H. F. Nuttall, F.R.S., Quick pro- 

 fessor of biology and fellow of Christ's College, Cam- 

 bridge, has been elected to a professorial fellowship at 

 Magdalene College. 



Manchester. — By the will of Mr. G. Harrison, who 

 died on January 21. 10,000/. is bequeathed to Owens 

 College for scholarships or fellowships, or such similar 

 purposes as the council of the college may direct, subject 

 to the words " George Harrison " being always associated 

 with the objects provided for by this bequest. 



Sir F^rederick Wills has contributed another 5000/. 

 to the fund for establishing a university at Bristol. This 

 brings his contribution up to 10,000/. At the beginning of 

 this year Mr. H. O. Wills promised 100,000/. toward the 

 endowment of the university provided a charter be granted 

 within two years. 



The University of London Union Societv appears to 

 have made good progress since its formation in July, 

 1906. The annual report for 1906-7 shows that at the 

 end of the session there were 377 members, 180 of whom 

 were graduates. Monthly meetings for discussion were 

 held during the Lent and Easter terms of 1907, and, in 

 addition, friendly relations have been established with the 

 Students' Representative Council, the University Athletic 

 Union, and the L'niversity Musical Society. The new' 

 union is modelled on the lines of those e.xisting at Oxford 

 and Catnbridge, and deserves the support especially of the 

 students of London colleges affiliated to the University. 

 Intending members should applv to the secretarv, Mr. 

 D. W. H. Bell, 20 Maxey Road,'Plumstead. 



A Bill to establish compulsory continuation schools in 

 England and Wales, and to amend the Education .\cts of 

 1870 and 1902 in respect of the age of compulsory school 

 attendance, was introduced in the House of Commons on 

 Tuesday by Mr. Chiozza-Money, and read a first time. 

 In introducing the Bill, Mr. Chiozza-Money said that 

 according to the last census there were in England and 

 Wales 5,000,000 youths of both sexes between the ages of 

 fifteen and twenty-one, and of these not more than 400,000 

 were receiving any measure of systematic training. This 

 does not include the children of the upper and middle 

 classes, but if 400,000 be added the extraordinary con- 

 clusion is arrived at that out of 5,000,000 young people 

 between fifteen and twenty-one years of age only 800,000 

 continue training after leaving the elementarv schools. 

 The practical result is that untrained boys and girls drift 

 into the ranks of the incompetent, the unskilled, and the 

 unemployed. The Bill abolishes all partial or total exemp- 

 tions of boys and girls under fourteen vears of age. It 

 abolishes half-timers, making fourteen years the lowest 

 age at which a boy or girl might leave an elementary 

 school. A continuation scholar is defined as a bov between 



the ages of fourteen and seventeen, and a girl between 

 the ages of fourteen and sixteen. The Bill makes it the 

 duty of the education authority to establish continuation 

 schools, with technical classes, and the attendance of con- 

 tinuation scholars is made compulsory on the parent and 

 the employer. The hours of attendance would be six per 

 week, spread over one, two, or three days. The cost of 

 carrying out the provisions of the Bill would be defrayed 

 out of money voted by Parliament. 



About a year ago the Board of Education requested its 

 Consultative Committee to consider and advise the Board 

 what methods are desirable and possible, under existing 

 legislation, for securing greater local interest in the 

 administration of elementary education in administrative 

 counties by some form of devolution or delegation of 

 certain powers and duties of the local authority to district 

 or other strictly local committees. The committee has 

 reported to the Board, and the report has been published 

 (Cd. 3952). A prefatory memorandum states that the 

 findings of the committee are under the consideration of 

 the Board, and that the report has been published to 

 provide information in view of the discussion arising out 

 of the Bill recently introduced in the House of Commons 

 to secure compulsorv devolution. The Consultative Com- 

 mittee has arrived at certain general conclusions which 

 should prove of value in assisting intelligent action. 

 Every education committee, it is suggested, should, so far 

 as existing powers go, secure as managers of schools the 

 services of persons familiar with the educational needs of 

 the localitv and likely to be regarded with confidence and 

 sympathv by parents, teachers, and the education authority. 

 At the same time, there are certain duties requiring a 

 wide outlook and broad educational experience which, the 

 committee thinks, should be reser\-ed by the authority 

 it.self. A certain number of counties exist which might 

 with advantage create some form of local subcommittees 

 and delegate to them duties appropriate to their needs 

 and circumstances. It is very important to notice that 

 the Consultative Committee states that it would be difficult, 

 if not impossible, to devise any uniform system which 

 would give general satisfaction throughout the country. 

 It would be fatal to efficiency if a parochial spirit became 

 predominant in the administration of education. It is 

 desirable by all means to encourage an interest in educa- 

 tional matters in all districts by every legitimate means, 

 but everv step must be taken to ensure that the supply of 

 efficient education in every locality is a national matter 

 which must not be left at the mercies of local prejudices. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



LO.NDON. 



Royal Society. December 5. 1007. — '- localisation of 

 Function in the Lemur's Brain." By Dr. F. W. Mott, 

 F.R.S., and Prof. W. D. Halliburton, F.R.S. 



The brain of the lemur, the lowest of the ape-like 

 animals, does not appear to have been subjected previously 

 to a thorough examination. Page May and Elliott Smith 

 brought a brief communication on the subject before the 

 Cambridge meeting of the British Association in 1904. 

 Their experiments were apparently limited to stimulation 

 of the cerebral cortex, and they have never published a 

 full account of their work. Brodmann has worked out 

 some of the histological details of the structure of the 

 cortex cerebri, and Max V'olsch has performed a stimula- 

 tion experiment upon one lemur. The work of these 

 investigators will be referred to again in the course of 

 this paper. 



(i) The brain of the lemur has a simple convolutional 

 pattern, and the fissures are few and for the most part 

 shallow. 



(2) The motor areas are limited to the central region 

 of the cortex. 



(3) Extirpation of the excitable areas is followed by 

 transitorv paralysis of the corresponding regions on the 

 opposite side of the body, and by degeneration of the tracts 

 which pass to the bulbar or spinal grey matter which 

 controls these movements. Degeneration also occurs in 

 commisural (callosal) and association tracts in the 

 cerebrum. 



NO. 2004. VOL. yj] 



