May i, 19 1 3] 



NATURE 



advanced students who are qualified to enter on the 

 fourth year of the course should apply. There is no 

 restriction as to income, but intending candidates 

 must be ordinarily resident within the area of the 

 administrative County of London, and must be 

 students who have been in regular attendance at 

 appropriate courses of instruction for at leasl two 

 sessions. The free studentships do not entitled the 

 holders to any maintenance grants, but cover all 

 ordinary tuition fees. The free places will be awarded 

 on consideration of the past records of the candidates, 

 the recommendations of their teachers, the course of 

 study which they intend to follow, and generally 

 upon their fitness for advanced study in science as 

 applied to industry. Candidates will not be required 

 to undergo a written examination. Application forms 

 {T. 2/268) may be obtained from the Education 

 Officer, L.C.C. Education Offices, Victoria Embank- 

 ment, W.C., and must be returned not later than 

 Saturday, May 24. 



Vacation courses for foreigners are to be held in 

 Hamburg from July 24 until August 6 next. In all 

 seventy-five lectures and courses have been arranged 

 in connection with the scientific institutions of the 

 State of Hamburg, with the hospitals and the Colonial 

 Institute. The courses will aim at acquainting 

 foreigners with the position of scientific studies in 

 Germany. Scientific problems of the day will be 

 treated by competent specialists in a manner intelli- 

 gible to educated persons. Some sixty-five professors 

 from German universities and institutes will assist at 

 the courses. For the convenience of foreigners, 

 special practical courses in German have been arranged 

 daily between June 16 and July 26. These courses 

 offer an opportunity of acquiring a practical know- 

 ledge of the language. Courses have been arranged 

 also for medical students, including practical work 

 at the Eppendorf Hospital, and a series of lectures on 

 diseases of the heart and lungs. Students will be 

 given opportunities of sight-seeing in Hamburg and 

 its environs. Prospectuses and all information may 

 be obtained gratis on application to "Geschiiftsstelle 

 jder Akademischen Ferienkurse," Hamburg 20, 

 Martinistrasse 52. 



The organiser for technical education in the Trans- 

 vaal, Mr. W. J. Home, has amplified a paper he read 

 before the South African Institution of Engineers at 

 Johannesburg shortly after the establishment of the 

 Johannesburg Trades School, and the result is a 

 volume on the Trades School in the Transvaal, a 

 copy of which has been received. After explaining 

 the need for vocational instruction, he gives a descrip- 

 tion of the character and scope of the work done in 

 the urban trades schools of the Transvaal, explains 

 the nature and cost of the buildings and equipment 

 in different centres, and reviews what is being done 

 to meet the special needs of rural areas on one hand, 

 and of girls on the other. The volume shows that 

 considerable progress has been made already in the 

 provision of technical education in the Transvaal. 

 The Pretoria Trades Schools and Polytechnic, for 

 example, has accommodation for 200 pupils, and is 

 provided with shops for blacksmiths and farriers, 

 workers in wood, electricians, mechanical engineers, 

 plumbers, wagon-builders, and printers. As Mr. 

 J Percy FitzPatrick, the chairman of the Witwaters- 

 rand Council of Education, says, in the introduction 

 he contributes to the volume, "the motto of the 

 Transvaal Trades Schools is 'theory and practice.'" 

 and Mr. Home insists that the mission of the trades 

 schools must be to unite and harmonise these two 

 essential things. The volume is full of practical sug- 

 gestions for ensuring this end and of providing means 



NO. 2270, VOL. 91] 



for bovs and girls to proceed as far in their study of 

 technology as their capabilities permit. 



The Indian newspapers recently received in this 

 country contain fuller particulars of what is in future 

 to be the Government policy with regard to education 

 in India. The statement circulated in India in 

 February last, we learn from The Times, after a 

 recognition of the beneficial effects of the Universities 

 Act of 1904, refers to the new decentralising policy. 

 It is pointed out that there are only five Indian univer- 

 sities for 185 art and professional colleges in British 

 India, besides several affiliated institutions in native 

 states. The day is probably far distant, it is re- 

 marked, when India will be able to dispense altogether 

 with the affiliating university. But it is necessary to 

 restrict the area over which the universities have 

 control, securing in the first instance a separate uni- 

 versity for each of the leading provinces, so far as 

 possible on a teaching and residential basis. A uni- 

 versity of this new type is being founded at Dacca, 

 and the establishment of universities at the provincial 

 capitals of Rangoon, Patna, and Nagpur is contem- 

 plated. The Government is also prepared to sanction, 

 under certain conditions, teaching and residential 

 universities at Aligarh and Benares, and elsewhere as 

 occasion may demand. The importance of secondary- 

 and high-school education as the basis of all profes- 

 sional or industrial training in India is emphasised. 

 Private enterprise in this field is so extensive that of 

 ',,852 high and middle English schools only 286 are 

 Government institutions. Unsatisfactory schools have 

 in certain cases gained recognition and eluded the 

 control of inspection. 1 The Government intends to 

 increase largely the grants-in-aid in order that non- 

 State institutions may keep pace with improvements 

 in Government schools;- to ■ multiply and improve 

 training colleges; and to found Government schools 

 where a survey of local conditions leads to the conclu- 

 sion that they are needed. The provision for tech- 

 nical, industrial, and scientific studies is surveyed, and 

 incidentally the statement is made that " the grave 

 disadvantages of sending their children to England to 

 be educated away from home influence at the most 

 impressionable time of life are being realised by 

 Indian parents." 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Roval Society, April 24.— Sir Archibald Geikie, 

 K.C.B., president, in the chair.— A. G. Huntsman: 



(1) Protostigmata in Ascidians. (2) The origin of 

 the. Ascidian .mouth.— F. A. Bainbridge, S. H. Collins, 



and J. A. Menzies : Experiments on the kidneys of the 

 frog. When the frog's kidneys are perfused through 

 the aorta and the renal portal veins with oxygenated 

 normal or hypotonic Ringer's solution the urine 

 formed is hypotonic to the perfusing fluid and is 

 derived entirely from the glomeruli, since the tubules 

 secrete no urine under these conditions. When the 

 tubules are poisoned with corrosive sublimate or (tem- 

 porarily') with caffein the urine becomes isotonic with 

 the perfusing fluid. On the contrary, if the glomeruli 

 are killed by the arterial perfusion of boiled Ringer's 

 solution, while the tubules still receive an adequate 

 supplv of oxvgen through the renal portal veins, the 

 urine" formed continues to be more dilute than the 

 perfusing fluid.— Cecil Revis : (1) The probable value 

 to Bacillus coli of "slime" formation in soils. When 

 kept in sterilised soils, particularly if these contain 

 exenta, B. coli shows a great tendency to the forma- 

 tion of " slime," a property which is retained for some 

 time when the organism is plated out on ordinary 



