September 15, 1910J 



NATURE 



(4) A change in curriculum and in degree requirements. 

 Let me read some remarks on American colleges which I 

 wrote in 1904. " Again, there is, in each American 

 institution, a considerable ' mortality ' or shedding of 

 students. Some students find their general preparation 

 insufficient ; some find the pace too great ; others find their 

 funds give out ; and some are advised that they have 

 made a bad selection. In such cases the American student 

 accepts advice, and acts promptly. At every step a 

 student's work is known, and the faculty — staff of pro- 

 fessors in each department — every four months discuss 

 fully a student's work. The middle of the third year is 

 the critical point in a student's career. At this stage the 

 requirements of the Institute of Technology demand a final 

 decision as to choice of work. Fifteen men in one depart- 

 ment were, at this point, recently advised to change their 

 courses or to withdraw from the institute. I was in- 

 formed that, as a rule, 25 per cent, of the civil engineer- 

 ing students drop off at the same stage. These numbers 

 have to be added to those who have previously ' fallen by 

 the way.' The greatest patience is extended to the 

 students, and the best advice is offered to them ; but in 

 the interest of the individual, as of the standing of the 

 institute and of its influence on industrial work, such 

 shedding of students is regarded as inevitable, and is 

 acquiesced in. It does not follow that the men are 

 'wasted.' As a rule they find employment of a lower 

 character than they were aiming at ; they change the 

 directions of their careers, to their own great advantage, 

 or they pursue a course of studies on the same lines at a 

 secondary institution— a two-year course school." 



It appears to me that such kind of advice and action is 

 necessary in British teaching institutions, but it is hardly 

 possible under existing conditions. 



(5) Another means of bringing the college class-room 

 and laboratory into closer connection with factory, work- 

 shop, and office would be more liberal provision of 

 short, specialised courses suitable to the heads of 

 firms or their successors. I am not referring to that 

 provision of evening courses which is made in technical 

 schools and schools of art, but to provision, whether day 

 or evening, of advanced courses for industrial and com- 

 mercial leaders or their successors in institutions which 

 there could be no presumed loss of self-respect in attend- 

 ing. Such courses are provided at several colleges ; they 

 need multiplication. I know that a large number of able 

 men obtain, at much expense, instruction through private 

 agencies, because the best institutions do not appear to 

 cater directly for their needs under suitable conditions. 



(6) As to modern languages, three things are necessary 

 for the majority of students : — (i) less the scholar's and 

 more the utilitarian point of view ; (ii) more concentration 

 during the later school and college years ; and (iii) speak- 

 ing generally, a better class of teachers. 



In conclusion, let me say that this preliminary study of 

 a very large question has disclosed much hopefulness of 

 the future. The obstacles which university and other 

 highly trained njen encounter in getting a footing in the 

 industrial world are still formidable, and the breaking 

 down of the barriers between our highest teaching institu- 

 tions and commercial life forms a specially difficult task. 

 But there is plenty of need for first-class men, and there 

 is not much difficulty in getting the exceptionally good 

 man placed. It is gratifying, too, to find that His 

 Majesty's Consuls speak in the highest terms of the 

 personal qualities of our foreign commercial travellers. 



On the side of education, too, there is much hopeful- 

 ness. .A distinguished university writer not long ago stated 

 that the object of uni%-ersity education " was not how to 

 keep our trade, but how to keep our souls alive." Between 

 such a representative of university education and the busi- 

 ness man who inquires what is the money value of a 

 degree there is little room for accommodation. But the 

 writer did an injustice to the universities, and the facts as 

 to the objects of university education are against him. 

 It may be true that in the long view the keeping of our 

 souls alive is the object of university education, but even 

 the oldest of our universities' are becoming conscious that 

 the immediate condition of saving our souls alive is that 

 of saving our trade. 



NO. 2133, VOL. 84] 



ROYAL SANITARY INSTITUTE. 

 T^HE twenty-fifth annual congress of the Royal Sanitary 

 Institute, held at Brighton from September 5-10, was 

 attended by upwards of 1200 members. To the address 

 of the president. Sir John Cockburn, K.C.M.G., we have 

 already referred (Nature, September 8). Seeing that no 

 fewer than sixty-three papers were printed in extenso, 

 and many of them " taken as read " before discussion, it 

 will be understood that it is impossible, within the limits 

 of our space, to do more than glance at the general aspects 

 of the work of the congress, endeavouring to indicate the 

 drift of opinion on some of the more important questions 

 which were raised. All problems relating to the health 

 and physical well-being of the community are regarded as 

 coming within the province of the Institute. In the Lecture 

 to the Congress Dr. Arthur Newsholme set forth the now 

 well-known statistics of diminishing birth-rate, and con- 

 sidered the arguments in favour of, and against, the pre- 

 sent crusade against infant mortality. " Is it worth while 

 to dilute our increase of population by 10 per cent, more 

 of the most inferior kind?" The diminishing fertility- 

 rate is as noticeable in the ranks of skilled artisans as it 

 is in the ranks of the well-to-do. He concluded that it 

 has not been proved that the inferiority of the offspring 

 of the most fertile class, the unskilled, is due to inferiority 

 of stock so much as to the unsatisfactory conditions into 

 which they are born, and he strongly deprecated the atti- 

 tude of that section of eugenists whose pass-word is 

 "Thou Shalt not kill, but need'st not strive Officiously to 

 keep alive." The services of health visitors and the adop- 

 tion of the Notification of Births Act are, the lecturer 

 considered, the most hopeful agents and means whereby 

 the death-rate of early life may be reduced. 



The numerous papers and discussions we can but 

 summarise under separate headings. The Mumcipal 

 Control of Tuberculosis.— Compu\sory notification of all 

 cases was strongly advocated, and the removal of cases 

 which cannot be nursed at home, without risk of spreading 

 infection, to the empty wards of fever hospitals and small- 

 pox hospitals ; the risk of cross-infection being ml if suit- 

 able administrative measures be adopted. This system had 

 its initiation in Brighton, so far as the use of hospitals is 

 concerned, and its value has been thoroughly proved. 

 Patients receive the educational treatment which gives 

 thrm a practical understanding of the lives which for the 

 sake of other people, as well as for their own, they must 

 henceforth lead. Preventive Medicine ui School l-'tf-— 

 Much consideration was devoted to the work of the school 

 medical officer, the administration of the Education Act 

 of 1008 being, as everyone acknowledged, in a tentative 

 and, in many respects, a very unsatisfactory phase. 

 More financial support is needed. Inspection without 

 school clinics is in many districts in which there is diffi- 

 culty in obtaining treatment of very little use. Ibe 

 question of the periodical disinfection of school premises 

 led to warnings regarding the danger of " sprinkmg a 

 little carbolic acid, and leaving the rest to Providence. 

 There are, indeed, few subjects in which sanitary authori- 

 ties themselves are more in need of education than in the 

 use of disinfectants. Faulty drains are not reconstructed, 

 nor are their dangers lessened by an antiseptic odour 

 which allays the anxiety of the public. Several papers 

 were read upon school planning, and opinion appeared to 

 be universally in favour of the Derbyshire and Stafford- 

 shire type, which provides efficient cross-ventilation of 

 every class-room. Cross-lighting "'"^^' ^°'"''^'"• ..^H 

 avoided as far as possible. Open-air schools on the ines 

 of the Thackley (Bradford) school, in which each class- 

 room has a verandah for fine weather, were connmended 

 Rectangular class-rooms with more direct lighting ana 

 warming by the sun's rays are to be preferred to square 

 rooms, .\ppliances for drying cloaks and shoes should be 

 provided. The treatment of tuberculous cliildren and of 

 the pre-tubercular was brought forward by Dr. _ Broadbent 

 who strongly advocated teaching such children in the open 

 air, and a modified curriculum. The X-ray treatment of 

 ring-worm was approved; but the utmost caution •= neces- 

 sary at the present time, lest its unskilful apphcation 

 should throw it into disrepute. Disease Carriers.— frob- 



