November 26, 1908] 



NA TURE 



T15 



I LIE council of the University College, Bristol, has 

 appointed Dr. John Beddoe, F.R.S., honorary professor of 

 anthropology. 



Dr. V. H. Blackman, professor of botany in the Uni- 

 versity of Leeds, has been appointed by the Senate to 

 represent the University at the commemoration, in June 

 next, at the University of Cambridge, of the centenary 

 of Darwin's birth and the fiftieth anniversary of the 

 publication of the " Origin of Species." 



Lord Iveagh has been elected Chancellor of the Uni- 

 versity of Dublin in succession to the late Lord Rosse. 

 Lord Iveagh has been a generous benefactor of the Uni- 

 versity, and contributed a sum of 16,500/. for the construc- 

 tion and equipment of the laboratory of experimental 

 physics, which was completed in 1906. 



Speaking at Edinburgh on November 19, in opening the 

 new science and art rooms of George Watson's College 

 for Boys, Lord Avcbury said that, considering how much 

 we owe to science, it is a marvel that so little time is 

 devoted to the study of nature in the public-school and 

 university system. Scientific men do not undervalue or 

 wish to exclude classics from the curriculum, but their 

 point of view is that a man, however much he may know 

 of the dead languages, if he knows nothing of science is 

 but a half-educated man after all. 



.•\n article by Prof. Rudolf Tombo, jun., in Science for 

 October 30 last, on the geographical distribution of the 

 student body at a number of .American univei'sities and 

 colleges, deals incidentally with the number of foreign 

 students in attendance at these institutions. The total 

 number of students from foreign countries in attendance 

 at the twenty-seven institutions in the United States 

 selected for the purposes of the comparison is 1088. Of 

 this number Europe contributes 219, Asia 332, Australasia 

 58, and .Africa 9. Pennsylvania University has the largest 

 foreign clientele, followed by Columbia, Cornell, and 

 Harvard, each of which attracts more than one hundred 

 foreigners. Taking the representation of foreigners at all 

 the selected institutions, we find that the largest number 

 of students are sent by the following countries : — Canada, 

 2io; Japan, 142; China, 139: Mexico, 90; Cuba, 67; Great 

 Britain and Ireland, 60; Argentine Republic, 56; and 

 India, 54. Of European countries, England sends the 

 largest number, namely, 60, followed by Russia with 40 

 and Germany with 32. Of the students from Great Britain 

 and Ireland, 8 attend Columbia University, 9 Harvard, 

 ind 12 Pennsylvania. 



The opening of the new memorial buildings at Eton 

 College by the King took place on Wednesday, November 

 iS. The ceremony was most impressive, and the King's 

 reply to the address of the boys e.xpressed in admirably 

 clear and dignified words the feelings which must have 

 pervaded the whole assembly. " You all have the oppor- 

 tunity of leaving Eton trained in the knowledge and 

 accomplishments of English gentlemen, and disciplined to 

 the self-restraint, the consideration for others, and the 

 loyal acceptance of private and public duties which are 

 the ideals of our race. I exhort you to value and make 

 the most of that training and discipline. You can have 

 no better example than that of the brave men of whom 

 this splendid building is a loyal and lasting memorial." 

 It would be difficult to give a better expression to the 

 J)ublic-school ideal, and the King's words may well be 

 studied by every school in his kingdom. Eton has for 

 some time possessed laboratories, chemical, physical, and 

 biological, as well as workshops, and, as at other public 

 schools, boys have the opportunity of acquiring some of 

 the wider- culture which science is ready to supply, and 

 which Osborne and Dartmouth are adding to the know- 

 ledge and accomplishments of English princes ; but 

 hitherto Eton has had no single building capable of 

 accommodating the whole school. The new hall supplies 

 this defect, and it will be used for concerts and lectures, 

 provision having been made for an electric lantern. The 

 acoustic properties of the hall seem to be excellent, and 

 every word, not only of the King's speeches, but also of 

 the address read by the captain of the school, was dis- 

 tinctly audible. Adjoining the hall is a dome, in which 

 the school library will find adequate accommodation. 



NO. 2039, VOL. 79] 



The annual report of the Glasgow and West of Scotland 

 Technical College, adopted by the governors of the college 

 at the end of September last, has reached us. There was 

 during the session 1907-8 an increase of 156 _ students, 

 bringing the total up to 59 iS individuals if, as is done in 

 the report, the pupils of .Allan Glen's School are included. 

 We observe that the completion of the long-contemplated 

 amalgamation of the Incorporated Weaving, Dyeing, and 

 Printing College with the Technical College has been 

 effected, and this department, like all the other depart- 

 ments of the college, will continue under the supervision 

 of leading' members of the industry with which the work 

 is associated. A condition of the amalgamation is that 

 the governors shall make their best endeavours to provide 

 new premises for the weaving department in the new 

 buildings. Efforts are to be made to improve the pre- 

 liminary education of students entering the college ; notice 

 has been given that in .September, 19 10, the standard of 

 the preliminary examination will be raised to that of the 

 leaving certificate of the Scotch Education Department. 

 As the report points out, there is no reason why a boy 

 of average capacity and diligence should not obtam this 

 certificate at the a'ge of seventeen or eighteen. The re- 

 port acknowledges the encouragement received by the 

 rolle«e from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of 

 Scotland by a grant of 4000!., from the Education Depart- 

 ment by an additional grant of 8805!. towards the build- 

 ina and equipment fund, from the Corporation of Glasgow 

 of a sum of 4500!. from the residue grant, and also 900I. 

 in respect of the weaving college, and from local associa- 

 tions, industrial firms, and others by gifts of prizes for 

 students and of material for use in the labor.itories. 



The report on the work of the department of techno- 

 logv of the City and Guilds of London Institute for the 

 seision 1907-8 has reached us. We notice that since the 

 institute, some sixteen years ago, first established classes 

 for the training of teachers in the use of wood-working 

 and metal-working tools, instruction in this subject has 

 made great advances, and has been very much improved. 

 Originally introduced by way of experiment in a few 

 elententary schools, manual training is now a recognised 

 subiect in the curriculum of most elementary and secondary 

 schools, and is one of the subjects studied by men students 

 in training -colleges for teachers in elementary schools. 

 A recent alteration in the Board of Education Code regu- 

 lating the work of public elementary schools, by which 

 bovs of eleven years of age are admitted to classes in 

 handicrafts, will result most probably in a further demand 

 for qualified teachers in these subjects. The technology 

 committee of the institute directs attention to the fact 

 that the Board of Education has under consideration the 

 question of developing all forms of manual instruction 

 and of encouraging continuity throughout such teaching 

 from the classes for infants to the upper standards of the 

 elementary school. Since .892, the date of the first public 

 examination, 4861 teachers' certificates in manual trainmg 

 have been awarded by the institute. The work of the 

 department as a whole continues to progress. Ihe 

 number of subjects in which examinations were held 

 during the year dealt with in the report w.as seventy-tvyo, 

 as compared with sixty-nine in the previous year, the 

 number of separate classes increased from 331 1 to 3604, 

 and the number of students in attendance from 46 04^ to 

 48 223 The programme of courses of instruction for the 

 current vear contains, the report states, seventy-six different 

 syllabuses, including courses of instruction relating to more 

 than a hundred distinct branches of industry. 



Part ii. of vol. i. of the Journal of the Municipal School 

 of Technology, Manchester— a record of the work of the 

 school— has just been issued. It consists of 130 pages of 

 reprints of ten papers written by members of thestatf of 

 the school, and communicated to the scientific societies or 

 published in the scientific Press during the four years 

 1903-7. One of the papers deals with a mathematical, 

 another with an electrical, a third with a sanitary, two 

 with engineering, and five with chemical questions. The 

 journal is printed in the school, and reflects great credit 

 on the printing department. Its issue raises several 

 momentous questions. In the first place, Manchester 

 appears to be the only technical school in this country 



