March 27, 191 3] 



NATURE 



101 



The Department of Agriculture and Technical In- 

 struction for Ireland has now published particulars of 

 the summer courses for teachers it has arranged to 

 hold in July and August next. With few exceptions 

 the courses will be held in Dublin. In July teachers 

 will have the opportunity of selecting their study from 

 a wide variety of subjects of experimental science and 

 technology. In August, practical mathematics, rural 

 science, and a number of domestic arts will be taught. 

 These courses are open only to persons who are over 

 twenty years of age, and, except in the case of the 

 courses in rural science (including school gardening) 

 and drawing and modelling, only to teachers who are 

 engaged (a) by local committees of technical instruc- 

 tion ; or (6) in schools receiving grants either directly 

 from the department or under the provisions of an 

 approved local scheme of technical instruction. Appli- 

 cation to attend the courses must be made before 

 April 15. 



The Education Committee of the West Riding 

 County Council proposes to hold at the Training 

 College, Bingley, in August next, a vacation course 

 for teachers in secondary, technical, elementary, and 

 other schools, beginning on August 5. The course 

 will not be limited to West Riding teachers, but will 

 be open to all on payment of the fees. The aim of the 

 course is to stimulate teachers and to give them 

 opportunities of studying new methods of teaching 

 the various subjects rather than to give specific in- 

 struction in the subjects themselves. The subjects to 

 be dealt with cover most branches of the curriculum, 

 and include the following : — The teaching of practical 

 arithmetic, Mr. J. R. Deeley ; the teaching of hand- 

 work. Miss K. Steel ; the teaching of domestic sub- 

 jects. Miss G. E. Irons; physiology, Miss F. E. Relf ; 

 the teaching: of experimental science, Prof. Arthur 

 Smithells, F.R.S., and Mr. H. Calam; and nature- 

 study, Miss Mary Simpson. 



In his report for the academic year ending June 30 

 last, a copv of which has reached us, President Ira 

 Remsen, of Johns Hopkins University, refers to the 

 inauguration of a school of technology in the Univer- 

 sity. The creation of a new department of the Uni- 

 versity has been made possible by an Act of the Legis- 

 lature of Maryland, in its session of 1912. The sum 

 of i20,oooZ. was granted for the construction and 

 equipment of buildings for a school of advanced tech- 

 nology. A further continuing annual grant of io,oooL 

 was also provided for maintenance. The provisions 

 of the Act include the granting of 129 free scholar- 

 ships to residents of the State. These scholarships 

 are apportioned to the various legislative districts, to 

 seven colleges in the State, and six may be awarded 

 at large. Among the numerous public lectures given 

 in the University during the year, we notice a course 

 of eight on solar and terrestrial physics, bv Prof. A. 

 Schuster, one by Prof. W. Paszkowski, of the Univer- 

 sity of Berlin, on the organisation and work of that 

 institution, and four by Prof. W. L. Tohannsen, of 

 the University of Copenhagen, on heredity and varia- 

 tion. 



Lord Haldane save an address on the problem of 

 national education at the conference of the National 

 Union of Teachers on Tuesday, March 25. He 

 stated that he could not describe the details of the 

 scheme proposed bv the Government, but he could 

 give his own views. In the course of his remarks 

 he said : — " If we do not keep abreast in the training- 

 of the national mind with those other countries which 

 are organising their education systems, and which in 

 many respects are our superiors, it is inevitable that 

 in these days, when science and knowledge are the 

 conditions of all success, industrial and generally, 



NO. 226=;. VOL. Ql] 



we shall fall behind in the race. It is a question 

 of national safety, and nothing else, with which we 

 are dealing. I am sometimes very much concerned 

 about our industries when I think of the backward- 

 ness of our educational system, but man does not 

 live l>\' bread alone, and we shall not get even a 

 good technical education system unless we put it on 

 a broad foundation of national education. The State 

 has a deep and direct interest in seeing that its people 

 are educated, just as it has in seeing that they are 

 healthv. A national system must take cognisance 

 of all the means by which education is provided in a 

 country like this. The highest means, the lowest 

 means, the university, the secondary and the elemen- 

 tary school — they must all be fitted into their place 

 in one system. Ten years ago there were only six 

 teaching universities, but since then five more have 

 been established. Putting- outside Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge, the number of students working in the day 

 time has doubled in the last ten years. The number 

 of degrees obtained by students in England and 

 Wales in 191 1 is more than twice the number ob- 

 tained in 1901. There are things which cannot be 

 secured outside the atmosphere of the university. I 

 can never admit that an external student is the same 

 as an internal student. The internal student has 

 matured his mind in the university atmosphere. The 

 external student is working hard, but only for the 

 external examination, and some people with much 

 less aptitude than their neighbours in what is best 

 in the realities of education have much greater apti- 

 tude in passing examinations. Therefore the external 

 examination is not a real test of learning. The only 

 real test of learning on which I should like to give 

 a degree exclusively is the record of the student during 

 his time at the university." 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Geological Society, March 5. — Dr. Aubrey Strahan, 

 F.R.S., president, in the chair.— S. S. Buckman : The 

 " Kelloway Rock" of Scarborough. The author has 

 studied the types of ammonites from the Kelloway 

 Rock described by Leckenby, preserved in the Sedg- 

 wick Museum, Cambridge, and a series of Yorkshire 

 Kelloway-Rock ammonites from the Museum of Prac- 

 tical Geology, London. He has grouped these 

 ammonites according to their different matrices, and 

 finds that they indicate several different zones. These 

 zones he arranges in sequence, and suggests how they 

 may be compared with the sections of Kelloway Rock 

 of Scarborough given by Leckenby and by Fox- 

 Strangways. The exact order of the zones is, in one 

 or two cases, not considered to be proved, but the 

 paper is offered with the idea of indicating where 

 further work is required. — L. F. Spath : Jurassic am- 

 monites from Jebel Zaghuan (Tunis). Jebel Zaghuan, 

 the best-known and most conspicuous, though not 

 the highest, mountain of the Tunisian Atlas, is built 

 up largely of massive bluish-grey limestones of con- 

 fused stratification which have been referred to the 

 Middle Lias on the evidence of badly preserved belem- 

 nites and Terebratulae, notably "Pygope" aspasia, 

 Columna sp. Middle Liassic (Domerian) ammonites 

 are now recorded for the first time. A new classifica- 

 tion of the Domerian genera of the family Hildo- 

 ceratidae, to which the fossils from Jebel Zaghuan 

 belong, is proposed. Moreover, the ammonites col- 

 lected by the author afford sufficient evidence of the 

 presence of the zone of Reineckia anceps, which 

 occurs in Algeria, but had been supposed absent in 

 Tunis, together with the other beds intervening be- 

 tween the Middle Lias and the Corallian. 



