JuLy 8, 1915| 
NATURE 
527 


of consecration to the task of training young engineers 
for their highest service to mankind and to the 
country. 
The institute owes its origin to a gift of 100,000 
dollars from John Boynton, supplemented by another 
gift of 50,000 dollars from Ichabod Washburn. The 
fundamental idea of the latter was a commercial shop 
in which students should find laboratory practice in 
connection with the academic training necessary to 
make of them engineers and chemists. As Mr. Boyn- 
ton said, “The benefits of the school are not to be 
confined to the theories of science, but as far as pos- 
sible they shall extend to the practical application of 
its principles in the affairs of life.” The shop was 
regarded as an experiment, but it has turned out to 
be successful, both as an educational department of a 
college, and as a successful commercial venture. At 
first, the opinion was widespread that the school would 
become a place for educating mechanics and foremen, 
on account of a peculiar apprenticeship system that 
prevailed in the early years. It has developed into a 
professional school for applied science, giving the 
degrees in engineering and in chemistry. The shop 
has taken its place as a natural and practical labora- 
tory within a college, exactly as the clinic or hospital 
may be associated with the medical school. Its 
organisation is permanent, and it would remain as a 
manufacturing establishment if every student left the 
school. The students therefore do not take an essen- 
tial part in manufacturing, but they use a large part 
of the shop as their laboratory in the science of manu- 
facturing. The term “scientific management” is 
vague, but the essential parts of that management 
which teaches a young man all of the elements, in- 
cluding the actual work, the organisation, the account- 
ing, and the cost systems, are found in the Washburn 
shops. 
The addresses of the celebration laid especial 
emphasis on the higher education of men for applied 
science, using the Worcester Polytechnic Institute as 
a good example of what may be accomplished in that 
direction. The speakers on June 9 were Mr. A. Law- 
rence Lowell, president of Harvard University; Dr. 
John A. Brashear, president of the American Society 
of Mechanical Engineers; Hon. David I. Walsh, 
governor of the State of Massachusetts; Hon. John H. 
Weeks, Senator for Massachusetts; Howard Elliott, 
president of the New York and New Hampshire Rail- 
ways; Major-General Leonard Wood, former chief of 
staff of the United States Army; Ira N. Hollis, presi- 
dent of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and 
others. 
President Lowell’s address was significant in the 
text of his subject. ‘‘The thing that abolished 
slavery,” he declared, ‘‘ was not so much the change 
in morals as it was the change in the control of the 
forces of nature, without which the change in morals 
could not have taken place. This enlarged control of 
the forces of nature is what has made it possible for 
us to live in modern civilisation. The threatened ex- 
haustion of natural resources and the gigantic destruc- 
tion of human life and of wealth in the world conflict 
presents a challenge as to whether we have intelli- 
gence enough to prevent the serious set-back to civilisa- 
tion that may follow. In meeting this challenge, 
large trustworthiness must be placed upon the schools 
of applied science.”’ 
General Wood’s speech related almost wholly to the 
establishment and maintenance of a citizen soldiery 
behind a small regular army in the United States. He 
commended the example of Switzerland as a country 
effectively prepared against war, securing a maximum 
of defence while avoiding a great military burden, 
the diversion of the people from their ordinary busi- 
ness, and the sacrifice of their ideals of democracy. 
NO. 2384, VOL. 95] 


UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 
INTELLIGENCE. 
Leeps.—The following honorary degrees were con- 
ferred at a Congregation held on July 3 :—Doctor of 
Laws: Dr. David Forsyth, headmaster of the Leeds 
Central High School. Doctor of Science: Mr. Harold 
W. T. Wager, F.R.S., one of H.M. Inspectors of 
Schools, who began his professorial career at the 
Yorkshire College, and is distinguished by 
his researches in cytology and other biological 
fields. Master of Science: Mr. T. Hi. Nel- 
son, of Redcar, a _ distinguished ornithologist, 
author of ‘‘ The Birds of Yorkshire’; Mr. W. Denison 
Roebuck, joint author of ** Handbook of the Vertebrate 
Fauna of Yorkshire”; Mr. T. Sheppard, curator of 
the Hull Museums, author of ‘* Geological Rambles 
in East Yorkshire,’ ‘‘ The ‘Lost Towns of the York- 
shire Coast,” and many geological and archeological 
memoirs; Mr. J. W. Taylor, author of a ‘* Monograph 
of the British Land and Freshwater Mollusca’’; Mr. 
J. G. Wilkinson, past-president of the Leeds Natural- 
ists’ Club, distinguished by his extensive and exact 
knowledge of the structure of plants, though blind; 
Dr. T. W. Woodhead, lecturer in biology at the Tech- 
nical College, Huddersfield, hon. secretary of the 
Yorkshire Naturalists’ Union, and author of various 
biological memoirs. 
Oxrorp.—The Halley lecturer for the year 1916 is 
Prince Boris Galitzin, professor of physics in the 
Imperial Academy of Sciences, Petrograd. The sub- 
ject of the discourse is not yet announced. 
It will be remembered that at the time of the 
appointment of the present Waynflete professor of 
chemistry, Prof. W. H. Perkin, F.R.S., the Univer- 
sity decided on the erection of a new chemical labora- 
tory. The building, designed by Mr. P. Waterhouse, 
is now nearly finished. It occupies a site in the south- 
west angle of the Parks, close to the University 
Museum, and has a frontage in South Parks Road. 
The expense of the actual building was largely pro- 
vided by the Endowment Fund presided over by ‘Lord 
Curzon, as Chancellor of the University, and also by a 
timely and generous donation of 5oool. from Mr. 
C. W. Dyson Perrins, formerly of Queen’s College. 
But Mr. Perrins’s munificence has not stopped here. 
He has lately offered to present to the University a 
further sum of 25,o00l., of which 5o000/. is to be 
applied to the equipment of the laboratory, and the 
remaining 20,0001. is to form a permanent endow- 
ment fund for maintenance of the laboratory and for 
the encouragement of research and instruction in 
chemistry. The University is thus relieved from 
anxiety about the upkeep of the department—a matter 
which is frequently lost sight of by benefactors. There 
is now every prospect that the new laboratory will 
open in October next under the happiest auspices, 
and that the wise provision made by Mr. Perrins for 
research will bear ample fruit in the future. 

By the will of the late Alderman Owen Ridley, 
University College, Reading, receives roool. for the 
building or equipment of new college premises, 250l. 
for the assistance of necessitous students, and 2o0l. 
for prizes for evening class students. 
Wit the issue of the Athenaeum for July 3 is pub- 
lished the first instalment of a Subject Index to 
Periodicals, which our contemporary is undertaking at 
the request of a committee appointed for the purpose 
by the Library Association. To begin with, the pro- 
gress of science and technology in 1915, with special 
reference to the war, is being indexed. We welcome 
this attempt to provide a much wanted guide to cur- 
rent literature, and trust that with competent scien- 
