July 13, 191 ij 



NATURE 



59 



all scholars under suitable conditions to sixteen years of 

 Bgi , this association is of opinion that the provisions of 

 the Bill as introduced require considerable amendment, 

 especially in the direction of fixing more definitely the age 

 of fourteen as the normal age for leaving the day school 

 and in the incidence of compulsion upon employers to 

 afford facilities for the attendance of young people at 

 continuation schools by the reasonable limitation of their 

 hours of labour." 



At the close of the business of the meeting the president 

 presented, on behalf of the association, a handsome silver 

 rose bowl and four candlesticks to Dr. R. S. Clay, prin- 

 cipal of the Northern Polytechnic fnstitute, Holloway, " in 

 recognition of his valuable services as honorary secretary 

 from 1907 to 1911." 



The master ol Caius presided at a dinner on Thursday 

 night at Caius College, and the president of Queen's 

 College received the members on Friday night. 



Rau'h S. Hyams. 



THE OPENING OF THE NEW BUILDINGS OF 

 THE ROYAL COLLEGE OF SCIENCE FOR 

 IRELAND. 

 '"THE scientific work of the Department of Agriculture 

 and Technical Instruction for Ireland received 

 welcome recognition through the opening of the new build- 

 ings of the Royal College of Science for Ireland by the 

 King, accompanied by the Queen, as the first act of the 

 royal visit to Dublin on Saturday last, July S. The 

 ceremony was under the control of the Commissioners of 

 the Board of Public Works, and a picturesque temporary 

 hall had been constructed in the Great Quadrangle, 

 through the open side of which the front of the new college 

 was visible. I he vice-president of the Department of 

 Agriculture and Technical Instruction (the Rt. Hon. 

 T. YV. Russell, P.C.), the higher officials of the Depart- 

 ment, and the professors of the college, had the honour 

 of being presented to their Majesties. The King was 

 pleased to announce that he had conferred a knighthood 

 on Prof. W. Noel Hartley, F.R.S., dean of faculty of 

 the college, whose absence through temporary illness was 

 greatly regretted. The architects, Sir Aston Webb, R.A., 

 and Mr. T. Manley Deane, and the builder, Mr. W. II. 

 McLaughlin, were presented to his Majesty, who knighted 

 Mr. Deane upon the spot. A pleasing feature was the 

 introduction to their Majesties of a deputation of the fore- 

 men engaged upon the works. 



The- Minister in Attendance (the Rt. Hon. Augustine 

 Birrell, P.C.) then asked the King to open the college, 

 and their Majesties, conducted by the officers of the Board 

 of Works, visited the building. Though the ceremony had 

 little of an academic character, the large number of visitors 

 honoured with an invitation must have realised the place 

 taken by science in the educational system now being built 

 up in Ireland, and the honour conferred on Prof. Hartley 

 will be warmly appreciated. When the classes begin work 

 in October in the handsome building now provided, it is 

 hoped that a scheme of correlation may be introduced bv 

 which the Irish universities will take advantage of the 

 courses of instruction in applied science in the college. It 

 is important to remember that the maintenance of such 

 courses, from the days of the Science and Art Department 

 onward, has Wn recognised as a part of the system of 

 public education, and that the new building of the Royal 

 College of Science for Ireland represents visibly the 

 stimulus given to scientific observation and research by Sir 

 Horace Plunkett and his colleagues when they reorganised 

 the agricultural and technical instruction of the country. 



THE EUGEMC.^ EDlT\TION SOCIETY. 



HTHE annual report of the Eug^vcs Education Society 



shows how much progress h.:> b"en made bv the 



society during the three years of its txisfence. Besides 



quick growth of the parent stem, branches have spread 



from Liverpool to New Zealand; indeed, in New Zealand 



eugenic ideas seem to be making their way into legislation. 



The main feature of the report, however, is the address 



of the new president, Major Leonard Darwin. Major 



Darwin emphasises the view that the study of heredity and 



NO. 2176, VOL. 8/] 



its application to sociology is the main function ol 

 eugenics. He says : — 



" Although the science of heredity is now young, yet 

 certain not hitherto widely recognised conclusions can 

 already be preached with absolute confidence : 



" (ij That men are very differently endowed by nature 

 in inherent mental and bodily qualities. . . . 



" (2) That in normal conditions, although [individual] 

 children differ widely from their parents, yet each genera- 

 tion closely resembles its predecessors in average inherent 

 qualities ; a truth which applies to every nation, and every 

 separable section of a nation. 



" (3) That it follows from these premises that, if one 

 nation is more highly endowed than another in inherent 

 qualities, that superiority will remain with it generation 

 after generaton in the absence of disturbing causes. . . . 



" (4J That if the least naturally gifted sections of a 

 nation are reproducing their kind more rapidly than are 

 those more highly endowed in mental and physical quali- 

 ties, then the higher are being swamped by the lower, and 

 the nation is decadent. . . . 



" (5) Lastly, that whilst every effort to improve the 

 environment of the nation should be made, modern science 

 indicates that the beneficial results on the race of possible 

 changes in external conditions are, in nearly all cases, 

 likely to be far less than was formerly believed to be the 

 case, the advantages being, moreover, probably dependent 

 on the maintenance of the reforms in question ; whereas 

 no assignable limit can be placed to the amount of the 

 improvement in the condition of the nation which might 

 in time result from reforms affecting its inherent qualities, 

 the results thus attainable being also of a vastly more 

 permanent chare 



In the necessary application of these principles in 

 practice, Major Darwin places in the forefront the need 

 of legislative power to segregate the feeble-minded. He 

 says : — " Here the difficulties encountered ought not to 

 be great, since public opinion is already largely on our 

 side." Doubtless, instructed public opinion is almost or 

 quite unanimous. But, unfortunately, instructed public 

 opinion has little voting power in present political con- 

 ditions, and the long delay in carrying out the recom- 

 mendation of the Royal Commission on Mental Defect is 

 impressing on us the unwelcome fact that the Govern- 

 ment and Legislature will take no action, even in a case 

 which is urgent and patent to every thinking man, unless 

 there are votes behind it. All the more need exists, there 

 fore, for the efforts of such associations as the Eugenics 

 Education Society to awake the nation to the evils of 

 further inaction. 



On the other side, Major Darwin rightly points out thai 

 much might be done by the adjustment of taxation to give 

 really effective economic relief to households consisting of 

 large families of sound stock. He also revives the 

 suggestion that the Government as an employer should 

 pay salaries to include an allowance for every living child. 

 As Government employees are usually picked men, this 

 proposal has definite eugenic value. 



Major Darwin concludes with a striking passage on the 

 moral question. He says : — 



"With regard to the moral ' aspects of eugenics, what 

 is it which has hitherto been the chief aim of the moral 

 teacher? Has it not been to enforce the necessity of self- 

 sacrifice for the sake of our fellow creatures? The eugenic 

 reformer now demands an enlargement of this code in the 

 light of facts unknown to our ancestors, and pleads for 

 the self-sacrifice of this generation for the sake of the 

 moral and physical welfare of the countless millions of the 

 unborn of the future. May not this be the greatest moral 

 question of all?" W. C. D. W. 



PERUVIAN ANTHROPOLOGY. 

 J T P to the present, the dearth of knowledge regarding the 

 ^ people of Peru has been due to the almost complete 

 lack of anthropological examination of the living subject 

 and to the nature of the material available, consisting 

 largely of skulls accidentally or artificially deformed 

 normal specimens from this region being rare in our exist- 

 ing collections. We knew in a general way that Peru, 

 shortly before the conquest, was peopled by at least three 



