jo6 



NA TURE 



[December 5, 1901 



The account of the recent excavations of Tycho's 

 observatory thus forms a valuable supplement to the 

 description published by Tycho himself. The idea of 

 seeking shelter from the wind, by erecting his large 

 instruments a couple of feet below the level of the 

 ground, was a good one, and on the small island the 

 force of the wind was doubtless not a negligeable quan- 

 tity, particularly as the observatory was situated almost 

 at the highest point of the island, about i6o feet above 

 the sea, which is visible in all directions except in the 

 south-east. I'icard remarked that except where some 

 hills in Scania rise to an altitude of 1 1', he had often seen 

 the stars down to the very horizon, which he considered 

 very surprising, as this was never possible at the Paris 

 Observatory, although the latter was about 120 feet 

 higher than the level of Tycho's observatory. But the 

 example thus set by Tycho was not followed ; for more 

 than a hundred years the object seemed generally to be 

 to get as near to the stars as possible by placing obser- 

 vatories on the top of towers and high buildings — and in 

 the midst of crowded cities. The nineteenth century 

 has reverted to Tycho Brahe's ideas by building obser- 

 vatories at some distance from cities and with the instru- 

 ments at very moderate heights above the ground. 

 Another idea of Tycho's, which was not adopted for 

 several centuries, was to have a large staff of assistants, 

 among whom the work of the observatory was divided. 

 He had cherished the hope for many years that the 

 institution founded by him would be made a permanent 

 one and not come to an end with his own life. Un- 

 fortunately he did not succeed in getting this settled in 

 the lifetime of his benefactor, King Frederic II., and 

 when he finally found that not only was it hopeless to 

 expect a permanent endowment, but that even some of 

 the valuable grants he had enjoyed for years were taken 

 from him, he resolved to try if some other monarch 

 would carry out his favourite idea and found a public 

 observatory on a large scale. But Tycho had been very 

 many years in his grave before this was done anywhere. 

 J. L. E. Drever. 



TECHNICAL SCHOOLS FOR RURAL 

 DISTRICTS. 

 "pNCOURAGED by the success which has attended 

 •*— ' the work of her sister, the Countess of Warwick, at 

 Bigods, near Dunmow, in Essex, the Duchess of Suther- 

 land has boldly entered upon a scheme for providing a 

 technical school in a still more remote rural district, viz. 

 near (iolspie, on their Dunrobm estate in Sutherland- 

 shire. No provision for secondary and technical educa- 

 tion in the Scotch Highlands at present exists, and the 

 proposed school must meet a long-felt want. The draft 

 scheme which has been drawn up by the Duchess wifh 

 the cooperation of Prof. Meldola provides for the educa- 

 tion of fifty pupils in the principles of those sciences 

 which bear in any way upon the local industries, includ- 

 ing agriculture. The ])upils will be taken from the 

 elementary schools and admitted only when fully quali- 

 fied to take advantage of the secondary training ottered 

 by the -Sutherland school. In view of the excellent 

 character of the elementary teaching in the Scotch 

 schools, there should be no difficulty in finding a constant 

 supply of promising pupils, the more especially as the 

 new school is intended for board and residence and caters 

 for the four counties of Sutherland, Ross, Cromarty and 

 Caithness. Like Bigods, the Sutherland technical school 

 is to be mixed and the curriculum adapted to the 

 requirements of boys and girls. As stated in the 

 scheme : — 



"It is impossible that education in the Highlands 

 should continue on the present lines. There is practi- 



NO. 1675, VOL. 65] 



cally no technical training whatever. The old form of 

 'classical' education is still persisted in, and often 

 a whole school suffers for the sake of three or four clever 

 pupils who win the bursaries which send them to the 

 University, from whence they issue as clerks, doctors 

 or ministers as the case may be. The others are left to 

 drift into idleness or to go away south to add to the 

 population of our already over-crowded cities. The over- 

 crowding of the fisher class is undisputed, and the dearth 

 of skilled masons, carpenters and artisans, or competent 

 hand-workers in the north, apart from the homespun 

 tweed industry, is remarkable. There have been many 

 peripatetic technical classes carried on under the County 

 Councils and School Boards in the north, but this is the 

 first technical school of the kind that has been started in 

 the Highlands. It should be the pioneer of much educa- 

 tional reform, and it is started with a great belief in its 

 ultimate possibilities.' 



The scheme has been considered by many educa- 

 tionists and has been approved of by Lord Balfour of 

 Burleigh, Mr. Struthers, of the Scotch Board of 

 Education, Sir Swire Smith, Mr. James Baker, Prof. 

 Magnus Maclean and others. Practical appreciation 

 of her Grace's efforts in the cause of education has 

 also been shown by the substantial support which 

 the scheme has already received. The Duke of 

 Sutherland has given the site for the building and land 

 for the agricultural work close to Golspie, besides 5000/. 

 towards the building and equipment fund. Mr. .Vndrew 

 Carnegie contributes 5000/. to the same fund and Mrs. 

 Carnegie two bursaries of 30/. each annually. The 

 Duke and Duchess of Sutherland, the Dukes of West- 

 minster and Portland, and Mr. James Coates, of Paisley, 

 also contribute annual bursaries. The work thus com- 

 mences under very good auspices and is worthy of the 

 most cordial support by all who are interested in the 

 welfare of Scotland. At the present time, when " ofl!icial " 

 educators are, as was said recently, whistling for the 

 wind of popular opinion, the country may well be proud of 

 the splendid examples set by the Countess of Warwick in 

 Essex and by her sister in the Highlands of Scotland. 

 As pioneers in the introduction of scientific education 

 into rural districts the names of these ladies will be 

 written large in the annals of our educational develop- 

 ment. 



A PERIODICAL FOR STATISTICAL 



BIOLOGISTS? 



THE receipt of the first part of the new periodical, 

 Bioiitt'/rika, calls for more than mere formal acknow- 

 ledgment. The methods of investigating biological 

 problems statistically may be looked upon as having their 

 origin in this country, and the names of the editorial staff 

 are those of the pioneers in this modern departure — 

 Francis Galton, and Profs. W. F. R. Weldon and Karl 

 Pearson, associated with Prof. C. B. Davenport, of the 

 University of Chicago. The part received is prefaced by 

 an editorial article setting forth the scope and defining 

 the spirit of the publication and an article on biometry 

 from the pen of Mr. Galton. An admirable figure of the 

 Darwin statue in the University Museum at Oxford, re- 

 produced from a photograph by Mrs. E. B. Poulton, 

 forms an appropriate frontispiece, the motto " Ignoramus, 

 in hoc signo laliorcinus," being printed below the illus- 

 tration. The papers contributed to this first part are 

 seven in number, including those already mentioned. 

 Prof. Dr. F. Ludwig writes (in German) on problems and 

 materials for variation statistics ; Mr. A. O. Powys con- 



1 Biometrika. A Journal for the Statistical Study of Biological Problems. 

 (Cambridge: University Press. New York: The Macmillan Company.) 



