April lo, 1902] 



NA TURE 



539 



condition gathered strength. Opponents and friendsof the 

 Department of Science and Art approached the scandal 

 from different points of view ; and in 1S96 a Select Com- 

 mittee of the House of Commons was appointed. Xo 

 witness before a Select Committee has, it is believed, ever 

 been subjected to such a prolonged course of petty 

 ignorant spite and vexatiousness as Sir John Donnelly 

 was. For months he had to undergo an almost daily 

 crossfire of idle questions. However, the main upshot 

 "f the Committee's reports was a vote by Parliament 

 of the handsome sum of Soo.ooo/. to complete the per- 

 manent science and art buildings at South Kensington, 

 thus securing the very object to obtain which Donnelly 

 had laboured so hard. So far as concerned the relatively 

 unimportant malicious statements and inaccuracies which 

 were aimed at Sir John Donnelly in passages of the 

 Committee's reports, the Lord President and Vice-Presi- 

 dent of the Council on Education issued a minute 

 animadverting upon them and emphasising the fact that 

 their lordships alone were responsible for the administra- 

 tion of the museums ; their directions had been loyally 

 carried out by the staff and they retained the fullest 

 confidence in Sir John Donnelly and his colleagues. 

 There can be little doubt now that the irritation to which 

 the Select Committee's persistent attacks put Sir John 

 told upon his health. 



Sensitive and reserved, he had an almost over- 

 exacting sense of rectitude. He did not court society 

 — in the conventional sense — but preferred the exclusive- 

 ness of his own circle of friends, which included many 

 men prominent in science and art. During his yearly 

 holidays, chiefly spent in the quiet retirement of his 

 house amongst the pine-woods at Felday, Surrey, he 

 frequently sketched, and season after season one or two 

 of his painstaking etchings and water-colour paintings 

 were to be seen at either the Royal Academy or the 

 New Gallery. 



NOTES. 



\\ is too early to estimate fully the effect of the magnificent 

 endowments provided for by the will of Mr. Cecil Rhodes, but 

 we are all able to admire the noble conception which aims at 

 promoting a good understanding between England, Germany 

 and the United States. It would be difficult to suggest a better 

 means of accomplishing this than that outlined by Mr. Rhodes. 

 Students from our colonies, the United States and Germany are 

 to be encouraged to spend three years in the University of 

 Oxford, where they will become familiar with our national 

 characteristics. Nothing but good can come from the friend- 

 ships which will thus be founded ; and there will be a strong 

 influence tending to bring the three nations into close relation- 

 ship with one another, which will enable political and com- 

 mercial questions to be discussed without the distiu.st usually 

 connected with them. Rarely have endowments been made 

 with so lofty an object ; and with such an example we look 

 hopefully to the future for other lies to bind nations together. 

 For the present, a brief statement of the provisions of the will 

 as regards education will be su6ficient to thow the scheme by 

 which this unity of race is to be furthered. Sixty scholarships 

 of 300/. a year each are to be founded for colonial students. 

 The scholarships will be tenable at any Oxford college for three 

 consecutive years, and twenty are to be awarded every year, 

 this number being distributed among the various portions of the 

 British Empire. Two scholarships of the same value are allo- 

 cated to each of the fifty States and Territories of 

 the United States of America. Moreover, in recognition 

 of the encouragement now given in German schools to 

 the study of English, fifteen scholarships of the value of 250/. 

 NO. 1693, VOL. 65] 



a year, tenable at Oxford by German students for three years, 

 are to be established. The will thus provides for scholarships 

 amounting to nearly 52,000/. per annum, which means a capital 

 sum of from one and a half to two millions. Some of the 

 scholarships would have been made tenable at Edinburgh if 

 the University there had been on a residential system ; for Mr. 

 Rhodes mentioned in his will that fifty or more students from 

 South Africa were studying there, many of them attracted by 

 the excellent medical school, but the want of a residential 

 system made him refrain from establishing any scholarships in 

 connection with the University. Oxford, like Cambridge, has 

 such a system, and the will suggests that "it should try to 

 extend its scope so as if possible to make its medical school 

 at least as good as that at the University of Edinburgh." The 

 world will now look to Oxford to increase the value of its medical 

 school, and we shall wait with interest to see what develop- 

 ments are made. Mr. Rhodes's old college at Oxford, Oriel 

 College, receives 100,000/., of which 40,000/. is for the 

 erection of new buildings, as a fund to cover the loss to College 

 revenue involved in the removal of houses to make room for 

 them ; 40,000/. to endow an increase of income of resident 

 fellows working " for the honour and dignity of the College " ; 

 10,000/. to increase the comforts of the High Table, and the 

 remaining 10,000/. is to be a fund for providing for the main- 

 tenance and repair of the College buildings. -A. sum yielding 

 2000/. a year is set apart for the cultivation of Mr. Rhodes's 

 property at Inyanga, and he directs in particular that irrigation 

 should be the first object kept in view. Other objects to be 

 borne in mind are experimental farming, forestry, market and 

 other gardening, fruit farming, and the teaching of any of those 

 things, and the establishment and maintenance of an agricultural 

 college. Mr. Rhodes's gifts are both bounteous in amount and 

 grand in intention ; and they reveal a greatness of character not 

 often found. 



Mr. George Wilson, whose death was announced in our 

 last issue, was one of those who early appreciated the immense 

 importance of applying science to manufacturing industries. 

 The results in his case were seen in the excellence of his pro- 

 ducts and in the importance of the incidental substances which 

 were brought to light in the course of the manufacture. In his 

 days the importance of scientific method and its superiority to- 

 rule of thumb were not so much insisted on as they are now. 

 Mr. Wilson was not only a chemist, but an enthusiastic horticul- 

 turist, adopting gardening at first as a recreation, and of late 

 years making it the occupation of his life. Although he 

 published nothing but ephemeral notes on his favourite pursuit,, 

 he constantly insisted on the necessity of applying scientific 

 principles to practical horticulture. In a very interesting little 

 book entitled "The Old Days of Price's Patent Candle Com- 

 pany," in which the history of the manufactures which resulted 

 in such vast improvements in candle making is detailed, he 

 says : " Laboratory training teaches careful observation and 

 close watching, both useful in gardening, which gives a wide 

 field for experiment. It I read the future aright ten years 

 hence good fruit will he much more general than it is now, and 

 for one beautiful hardy plant now common in our gardens we 

 shall have ten." This forecast was written in 1&76, and it has 

 certainly been fulfilled, if not quite in the way that Mr. Wilson 

 had in his mind. 



Four zoological lectures will be delivered in the meeting- 

 room of the Zoological Society after the general meetings oa 

 April 17, May 22, June 19 and July 17. The subjects and 

 lecturers are: — "Flying Reptiles," by Prof. IL G. Seeley, 

 F. R.S. ; "Horses and Zebras," by Prof. J. Cossar Ewart, 

 F.R.S. ; "The Okapi," by Prof E. Ray Lankester, F.R.S. ;. 

 and " Elephants," by Mr. F. E. Beddard, F.R.S. 



