June 5, 1913] 



NATURE 



Chattaway, F.R.S. The class is open to students who 

 are not members of the University. 



The new college buildings of Bedford College for 

 Women at Regent's Park, London, N.W., are to be 

 opened by the Queen on July 4, at 3 p.m. 



Vacation courses for instrument-makers and glass- 

 blowers will be held at the University of Leyden from 

 August 21 to September 4. Particulars of the courses 

 can be obtained from the director, Prof. H. Kamer- 

 lingh Onnes, or the general secretary, Dr. C. A. 

 Crommelin. 



The Commemoration Day proceedings at Living- 

 stone College on June 7 will be the celebration by 

 ill.' college of the Livingstone centenary. The recep- 

 tion of the special delegates and visitors by the 

 prim ipal will be from 3 to 3.30 p.m., and afterwards a 

 number of addresses will be given and .111 exhibition 

 held. 



A 1 1 he end of the present academic year Cornell 

 University, N.Y., will lose the services of Prof. H. H. 

 Norris, who has occupied its chair of electrical 

 engineering since iqo5, and has been head of the 

 (1. partment since IQ09. He is resigning j n order to 

 undi itake editorial work in connection with The Elec- 

 trical Railway Journal and The Electrical World. 



The following appointments have been made to the 

 facultv of the new school of technology in connection 

 with Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore : — Prof. 

 C. C. Thomas, of the University of Wisconsin, to 

 the chair of mechanical engineering; Prof. C. J. Tilden, 

 of the University of Michigan, to the chair of civil 

 engineering; and Prof. J. B. Whitehead, hitherto 

 professor of applied electricity in Johns Hopkins 

 University, to the chair of electrical engineering. 



An influentially signed memorial has been sent to 

 Lord Haldane, in his capacity of Chancellor of the 

 University of Bristol, directing attention to the cir- 

 cumstances in which Mr. R. P. Cowl, formerly pro- 

 fessor of English literature, was removed from the 

 University of Bristol in 1910. The signatories point 

 out that it appears that a grave injustice may have 

 been committed, and ask for a full investigation of 

 the case. In the first list of signatories there are 

 manv distinguished names, including the following 

 men of science : — Prof. W. Ridgewav, Sir Bertram 

 Windle, Profs. R. H. Yapp, J. A. "Green, W. M. 

 Travers, P. F. Frankland, Leonard Hill, William 

 Bullock, J. Adams, Gisbert Kapp, F. W. Burstall, 

 W. M. Bayliss, E. W. Hobson, and F. R. Japp. 



It is announced in Science that Mrs. G. W. Hooper, 

 of San Francisco, has transferred to the University 

 of California 2oo,oooL for the establishment of an 

 institute of medical research. We learn from the 

 same source that the late Prof. Louis A. Duhring, 

 formerly professor in the University of Pennsylvania, 

 in his will disposes of an estate valued at about 

 ioo.oooZ. The will creates a trust fund of 5000L, the 

 income of which is to be used for the benefit of the 

 department of cutaneous medicine, and it gives the 

 University of Pennsylvania Hospital io.oool. for the 

 establishment of free beds in which cutaneous, cancer- 

 ous, and allied diseases shall be treated and studied. 

 After a number of private bequests have been made, 

 the residue of the estate is to be given to the trustees 

 of the University of Pennsylvania, and applied to the 

 treatment of cutaneous diseases and their study. 



The Apprenticeship and Skilled Employment Asso- 

 ciation has issued its seventh annual report. The 

 work of the association is, among other matters, to 

 watch over the interests of juveniles so far as they 

 are affected by fresh legislation. During the year 

 NO. 2275, VOL. Oil 



under review the association has inquired into the 

 hours of employment of van and errand boys, and the 

 conditions of employment of bo) ( lerks in the Civil 

 Service; and representatives of the association have 

 given evidence before the Royal Commission on the 

 Civil Service. It is satisfactory to know that the Lon- 

 don County Council has adopted a suggestion made 

 a short time ago by the association that attendance 

 at continuation classes should be made a condition of 

 employment of their laboratory monitors. _ These lads 

 on leaving the council's service have, as in the past, 

 been referred to the association, and have in almost 

 every case been successfully placed. The report gives 

 further interesting evidence that there is a growing 

 disposition among public bodies to make use of the 

 services of the association in the matter of boys and 

 girls under their supervision. 



The issue of The Fortnightly Review for June in- 

 cludes an article on vocational education by _ Mr. 

 Cloudesley Brereton. The whole spirit of vocational 

 education' is, he maintains, that the manual work and 

 crafts with which it deals should not be taught 

 mechanically, or as a mere rule of thumb, but should 

 be used as veritable instruments of culture. In Lon- 

 don, vocational education has led, apart from the poly- 

 technic movement and the great extension of trade 

 schools, to the conversion of the higher elementary 

 schools into central schools, to which has been given 

 a definite bias for the preparation of the pupils for an 

 industrial or commercial life; while the work in the 

 infant schools and lower grades of the elementary 

 schools is every dav becoming more concrete and_ con- 

 structive. It is to be hoped, Mr. Brereton thinks, 

 that any scheme of national education will immensely 

 enlarge the facilities for vocational education, and be 

 the means of bringing the university into closer touch 

 with the business world and the locality of which it 

 should be the spiritual, and intellectual inspiration. 

 One thing is, he says, at least certain : we shall never 

 gain the full confidence of the business world and the 

 working classes until we can show that education is 

 practical, i.e. that it has an economic value; while if 

 we are to retain the confidence of those who believe 

 in the spiritual side of education, we must likewise 

 hold fast to its humanistic ideals. Vocational educa- 

 tion in the widest sense means the working out of 

 the combination of these ideals. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, May 2q.— Sir Archibald Geikie, 

 K.C.B., president, in the chair.— Prof. A. B. Macallum : 

 Acineta tuberosa : a study on the action of surface 

 tension in determining the distribution _ of salts in 

 living matter. In previous investigations it was found 

 that the salts demonstrated microchemically to occur 

 in the living cell were not uniformly diffused but were 

 condensed or "localised" at points in its cytoplasm, 

 or at parts of its surface. Amongst such salts were 

 the compounds of potassium, which are very soluble 

 F.nd are not known to form precipitates in nature. 

 It was concluded that some other force than simple 

 osmotic pressure was concerned in this distribution 

 of the salts, especially in the cases where the con- 

 densations were in those portions of the cell surface 

 where, from the deformation observed, it was inferred 

 that a lowering of surface tension was involved. The 

 explanation advanced was that surface tension was the 

 factor primarily concerned in these condensations. 

 Two years ago an investigation of the distribution of 

 potassium salts in Acineta tuberosa. a marine Sucto- 

 rian Protozoan, gave results which appear to place 



