!54 



NATURE 



[December 3 i, 1908 



of Greek can be begun. There is the more reason for 

 hope that the opinions of the conference will not 

 again be ignored in practice, since tne meeting 

 further resolved, on the motion of Dr. Lytteltoji, to 

 appoint a committee to confer with the preparatory 

 schoolmasters as to a scheme of studies for schoolboys 

 from the age of nine until about sixteen. 



A report presented to the Leicester meeting of the 

 British Association contained recommendations which 

 have been endorsed during the last fifteen months by 

 various meetings of teachers. Without undue pre- 

 cipitancy or rash precision, the meeting' decided, 

 " That this conference, while withholding its assent 

 to many deiails, and in particular to the proposal to 

 postixjne the study of Latin to the age of twelve, 

 approves of the main conclusions of the report of the 

 committee of the British Association Education 

 section." It may be hoped that influential head- 

 masters will find some means of translating this 

 .•i[)proval into action, especially the much-needed 

 improvement of the position of teachers. 



.Several administrative problems were discussed. 

 The Board of Education was asked to proceed at an 

 earlv date with the registration of teachers, the sug- 

 gestion being made that the Registration Council 

 should include representatives of various types of 

 schools. .\ resolution welcoming the inspection of 

 non-Iocal schools by the Board failed to pass, the 

 previous question being voted bv a small majority. 

 Some headmasters desired inspection as a means of 

 bringing the authorities of the schools into closer 

 touch with the Board, iit order that the great public 

 schools might take their place in a coordinated system 

 of national education. On the other side, fear was 

 expressed lest compulsory inspection should make the 

 headmaster responsible to two masters, the governors 

 and the Board ; any action was deprecated which would 

 diminish or destrov the variety^ of type of the 

 secondary schools of England. As opinion on this 

 matter appears to be uncrystallised, we may hope that 

 there mav be a gradual growth in the number of 

 schools which seek inspection bv the Board on their 

 individu.-il initiative. The conference appointed com- 

 mittees to confer with (a) the Army Council, (ft) the 

 Oxford .and Cambridge joint board. The neglect of 

 German was deplored, and a resolution was carried 

 in favour of dividing the emoKnnents of entrance 

 scholarships so that the bulk of the money should be 

 reserved to those in need of financial assistance. 



Reviewing the deliberations of the conference as a 

 whole, it can hardly be asserted that the need for far- 

 reaching reform of the public-school curriculum has 

 been sufficiently impressed upon headmasters. Reform 

 of the common examination for entrance to public 

 schools is a liecessarv preliminary. In its present 

 organisation this examination discourages manual 

 training, ignores the sesthetic side of education, and 

 penalises nature-study and experimental science. The 

 jjlain teaching of physiology concerning the develop- 

 ment of the brain ;md of neuro-muscular systems 

 receives contemptuous disregard. There is a wide- 

 spread belief that the position attained by a boy on 

 entrv to the public school depends almost entirely on 

 liis knowledge of the rudiments of Latin and Greek. 

 We do not know of how many schools this is true, 

 but we are certain that proficiency in natural history 

 or pliysics should be no bar to a boy's efTorts to w-in a 

 good position, and that no implication of intellectual 

 inferiority should attach to the .science side of the 

 school. With great earnestness w-e urge the joint 

 committee of the conference and the masters of pre- 

 paratory schools to re-model the conditions of the 

 entrance examination, so that voung boys mav pursue 

 a broad general course, comprising literary, scientific, 



NO. 2044, VOL. 79] 



mathematical, artistic and manual training. The 

 terms of reference assigned to the committee en- 

 courage us to hope for a curriculum containing the 

 studies we have enumerated up to sixteen vears of 

 age. If schemes founded on such a basis were 

 adopted by the schools, a partial specialisation during 

 the last two years at school would be compatible with 

 the aim which headmasters no less than their critics 

 have in view, viz. to ensure that the majority of bovs 

 should receive during school-life a general education 

 in harmony with the ideas and requirements of the 

 present century. G. F. D. 



BIRDS l.\ RELATION TO AGRJCULTl RK.' 



T~^L'RING the past few years birds have received 

 -•-^ an increased amount of attention, for it ha> 

 become more generally recognised that the whoU' 

 question of their food supply is of great importance 

 to British agriculture — using this term in its widest 

 sense. There are plenty of individuals who rightly 

 recognise that many of our avian fauna are of much 

 economic value, while there are also, unfortunatelv. .1 

 far greater number who thoughtlessly stigmatise the 

 inajority of birds — or at least birds of a certain class, 

 e.g. owls — as useless and harmful. These less 

 enlightened sons of the soil need showing that the 

 majority of British birds are useful, but the showing 

 is far from easw It has been demon-^trated over and 

 over again that the sparrow, or " the avian rat," :is 

 Mr. Tegetmeier terms it, is entirely harmful; Y.arrell 

 has stated that the kestrel principally subsists on 

 inice ; a case is mentioned by Macgillivray in whitli 

 food was brought to the nestlings by a pair of llv- 

 catchers no fewer than 537 times in a day; and the 

 writer has himself observed a single starling carry 

 food to its young from a grass paddock 18 times in 

 15 minutes; and hundreds of similar records have 

 served to demonstrate in some sense that manv birds 

 are useful, and confer an innnense benefit o)i 

 mankind. 



-Mthough individu.al records are very valu.abii , lh(\- 

 are not of the same importance as a coordinated and 

 duplicated set of records, and the latter has been 

 sorely needed. .Mr. Robert Newstead has just made 

 a most important contribution to our knowledge of the 

 food of birds, his memoir on the subject being pub- 

 lished as a supplement to the December issue i.f 

 the Journal of th.e Board of Agriculture. .Vs curator 

 of the Grosvenor Museum, Chester, a large number 

 of birds passed through Mr. Newstead's hands, and 

 he was wise enough to tabulate carefully the content-, 

 of stomachs, &c. No special effort was made to colUct 

 material, and for this reason the records are, pirh.ips, 

 the more valuable, since tio selection of birds 

 " caught red-handed " was made 



Full notes were also made as to rex, locality, dale. 

 Sec, and the records are based on 871 post-mortem 

 examinations of the stomach contents and the 

 " pellets " or " castings " of 128 species of birds. 

 Field observations bring the records up to more than 

 iioo. The contents of stomachs, "pellets," &c., are 

 arranged under .several heads, including insects, 

 divided into beneficial and harmful in their respective 

 orders; animals other than insects, e.g. slugs, birds, 

 fish and other "small deer"; and vegetable food, 

 which includes fruit, weed seeds, grain, &c. The 

 birds theinselves are finally divided, on the results of 

 their partiality for given foods, into seven classes, 

 from wholly innoxious and more or less strictly 



1 " Ttie Food of Some British Birds." By Robert Newstead. Jour.ml 

 0/ the Board 0/ Asricultiire, December supplement. (Board of Agriciiltuie 

 and Fisher.es, 4 Whitehall Place, S.W.) Price i^d. post free. 



