April 2%, 1887] 



NA TURE 



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presented for scientific training is demonstrated by the large 

 number of students which are always working in the university 

 laboratories, .while the expenditure of 30,000/. upon the physical 

 laboratory, and 35,000/. upon the chemical department, of the 

 New University of Strasburg, serves to illustrate the unsparing 

 hand with which the resources of the country are devoted to the 

 provision of those educational facilities which are the very life- 

 spring of the industrial progress whence those resources are 

 derived. 



In France, higher education had been allowed to sink to a low 

 ebb after the provincial universities had been destroyed in the 

 great Revolution, and the University of Paris had been consti- 

 tuted by the first Napoleon the sole seat of high education in the 

 country. Before the !?-te war, matters educational were in 

 a condition very detrimental to the position of the country 

 among nations. There was no lack of educational establish- 

 ments, but the systems and sequence of instruction lacked organi- 

 sation, but since the war, France has made great efforts to 

 replace her educational resources upon a proper footing. The 

 lirovincial colleges have been re-established at a cost of 3,280,000/., 

 and the organisation of industrial education has now been greatly 

 developed, though still not on a footing of equality with that of 

 Germany. Every large manufacturing centre has its educational 

 establishment where technical instruction is provided, with 

 special reference to local requirements ; and, in order to render 

 these colleges accessible to the best talent of France, more than 

 500 scholarships have been founded, at an annual cost of 30,000/. 

 The Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, of Paris, still 

 maintains the reputation as the great technical university of the 

 country which it earned many years ago, and receives students 

 from the provincial colleges, where they have passed through the 

 essential training preliminary to the high technical education 

 which that great institution provides. 



Switzerland has often been quoted as a remarkable illustra- 

 tion of the benefits secured to a nation by the thoroughly 

 organised education of its people. Far removed from the 

 ocean, girt by mountains, poor in the mineral resources of 

 industry, she yet has taken one of the highest positions among 

 essentially industrial nations, and has gained victories over 

 countries rich in the possession of the greatest natural advan- 

 tages. Importing cotton from the United States, she has sent 

 it back in manufactured forms, so as to undersell the products of 

 the American mills. The trade of watch-making, once most 

 important in this metropolis, passed almost entirely to Switzer- 

 land years ago ; the old-established ribbon trade of Coventry has 

 had practically to succumb before the skilled competition of 

 Switzerland; and although she has no coal of her own, Switzer- 

 land is at least as successful as France in her appropriation of the 

 coal-tar colour industry and her rivalry in rate of production with 

 England, the place of its birth and development. Comparative 

 cheapness of labour will not go very far to account for these great 

 successes ; they undoubtedly spring mainly from the thoroughly 

 organised combination of scientific with practical education 

 'if which the entire people enjoys the inestimable benefit. 



Holland furnishes another brilliant example of the success with 

 which a nation brings the power of systematic technical educa- 

 tion to bear in securing and maintaining industrial victories in 

 the face of most formidable disadvantages, while the United 

 States of America, so rich in natural resources, have long since 

 realised the immensity of additional advantages to be gained 

 over European nations in the war of industry by a wide diffusion 

 and thorough organisation of technical education. So long as 

 forty years ago the States already possessed several excellent 

 educational institutions established upon the b.asis of the Con- 

 tinental polyteclmic schools, but it was not until about fifteen 

 years later that the country became thoroughly impressed with 

 the great advances achieved by Germany in technical educa- 

 tion, and that the subject was made a thoroughly national one. 

 It is now just upon a quarter of a century ago since Congress 

 ')rdained that each State should provide at least one college, 

 having for its leading objects the diffusion of scientific instruction 

 in its relations to the industry of the country, and decreed that 

 public lands should be granted to the States and Territories 

 providing such colleges. The combined effect of this .State 

 action, and of great private munificence, was a remarkably rapid 

 development of scientific and technical education throughout the 

 country ; besides some fifty colleges, with eight or nine thousand 

 students, which sprang out of the Land Grant Act for Industrial 

 Education, there are mw in the States about 400 other uni- 

 versities and colleges, in a large proportion of which efficient 



instruction in applied science is provided. To the useful work 

 accomplished within a few years by these and many other highly 

 important educational institutions, which have placed the ac- 

 quisition of scientific knowledge within the reach of the very 

 humblest, the enormous strides made by the United States in the 

 development of home industries must unquestionably be in the 

 main ascribed. 



( To be continued.') 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE 



Oxford. — There are only a few alterations and additions to 

 the usual scientific lecture-list to report, as most of the courses 

 are in continuation of those given last term. Prof. Sylvester is 

 to lecture on the theory of numbers ; in the Chemical Depart- 

 ment, Mr. Wyndham Dunstan lectures on organic chemistry in 

 relation to medicine and physiology ; Prof. Prestwich is to have 

 his usual summer geological excursions ; Dr. Tylor continues his 

 exposition of the development of arts, as illustrated in the Pitt- 

 Rivers Museum. 



The Sibthorpian Professorship of Rural Economy has been 

 filled up by the re-election of Dr. Gilbert. The Radchffe 

 Travelling Fellowship has been awarded to Mr. W. Overend, 

 B.A., of Balliol. The statutes of the University Commissioners, 

 which limited the competition for most college scholarships to 

 candidates under nineteen, seem to be having an unfortunate, 

 though not unexpected, effect, as several colleges have lately 

 found it impossible to award scientific scholarships, owing to the 

 want of sufficiently qualified candid.ates. 



There is a good deal of strong feeling in the University with 

 regard to the approaching appointment of a Reader in Geography, 

 and the action of the Delegates of the University Fun.l in trans- 

 ferring a Readership from History to Geography, just after the 

 offer of the Royal Geographical Society for a similar purpose 

 had been refused, is the subject of much unfavourable comment. 

 There is no thought of opposition to the study of geography, 

 even of scientific geography, but history lecturers not unnaturally 

 complain that the only University appointment open to them 

 should be abolished to make a post for a lecturer in another 

 subject. 



Cambridge. ^Among the seven courses on chemistry being 

 delivered this term are lectures on gas analysis and on aromatic 

 bodies, by Dr. S. Ruhemann. Prof. Dewar and Dr. Ruhemann 

 also superintend laboratory practice specially directed to 

 research. 



The course given by Mr. Lyon, the Superintendent of the 

 Mechanical Workshops, this term is on machine construction. 



Mr. Langley is giving a special course on the central nervous 

 system, with demonstrations and practical work. 



Prof. Macalister's lectures this term are on the history of 

 human anatomy. It is to be hoped that he will publish them. 



Mr. M. A. Fenton is lecturing on elementary comparative 

 osteology : Dr. Gadow on the morphology of Mammalia, recent 

 and extinct, and on the palaeontology of the Vertebrata. 



Dr. Vines has a course of advanced embryology of plants, 

 and Mr. F. Darwin is giving advanced demonstrations in the 

 physiology of plants. 



In geology. Prof. Hughes is taking the geology of the neigh- 

 bourhood of Cambridge, by lectures and field excursions ; Mr. 

 Marr, foreign stratigraphy ; and Mr. Roberts, the Trilobites. 



Prof. Roy has classes for general pathology, morbid anatomy, 

 and practical morbid histology, bacteriology, &c. 



The lectures mentioned above are only a selection of the more 

 interesting courses. The lists from which the above are selected 

 announce about seventy-five courses of lectures and practical 

 work. 



Candidates for the John Lucas Walker Studentship, the 

 holder of which must devote himself or herself to original re- 

 search in pathology, should send their applications to Prof Roy, 

 Trinity College, Cambridge, not later than May 31 next. The 

 Studentship is of the annual value of 250/., and is tenable under 

 certain conditions for three years. 



SCIENTIFIC SERIALS 



The American Journal of Science, April. — Contributions to 

 meteorology, twenty-second paper, by Elias .Loomis. In this 

 communication the author treats of areas of high pressure, their 



