570 



NATURE 



[November 28, 1912 



2000 ni. altitude. The height at which the mean 

 annual temperature is o° C. was found to be about 

 2100 m. The temperatures in the upper air were 

 hitfher, both in winter and in summer, over regions 

 of high pressure than over regions of low pressure. 



Both papers contained much valuable and interest- 

 ing information, and Prof. Petavel expressed the hope 

 that they would be utilised by aviators. The probable 

 conditions in the upper air could be forecasted from 

 the surface conditions by using the average values 

 given by Miss White. 



The report of the joint committee on the investiga- 

 tion of the upper air contains the results obtained 

 at Mungret College, Limerick, during the past year, 

 from which it appears that the height of the strato- 

 sphere over Ireland is very nearly the same as it is 

 over England and the Continent. In speaking on 

 the report, Rev. W. O'Leary, S.J., who has conducted 

 the work at Mungret College, e.xpressed the desire felt 

 by those engaged in this work for definite instruc- 

 tions as to the type of weather in which ascents 

 might be made with a fair chance of the balloon and 

 instruments being recovered. 



A grant of 50L was made to the committee for the 

 extension of the work during 1012-13, when it is 

 hoped that ascents will be made over the North 

 .Atlantic. 



EDUCATION AT THE BRITISH 



ASSOCIATION. 



'TTHE presidential address was devoted to the con- 



J- sideration of the progress made in the develop- 

 ment of an objective standard in education. It vt'as 

 therefore a departure from the type of address with 

 which this section has been opened, and as such it 

 marks a distinct stage in the evolution of the science 

 of education. Prof. Adams's statement was distin- 

 guished by its moderation. He realises the difficulties, 

 but is not unhopeful of their being overcome. Whether 

 the psychologists will be quite happy about his state- 

 ment that education has captured their subject is not 

 quite certain, but, much as education owes to psycho- 

 logy, there can be little doubt that psychology is vastly 

 in the debt of education. But we are oiilv at the 

 beginning of the scientific study of the problem of 

 education, which, by reason of its special aims and 

 restricted field, must ultimately acquire that definite- 

 ness which we recognise as belonging to the older 

 sciences represented in the British .Association. 



Most closely connected with the subject of the presi- 

 dential address was the meeting devoted to the 

 psychological processes underlying reading and writ- 

 ing. A sectional committee had reported upon the 

 subject and arranged for papers to be read. Mr. F. 

 Smith dealt with the process as it takes place in the 

 practised reader, and Mr. Dumville with the learner. 

 Mr. Dumville 's paper was in the main a defence of the 

 so-called " Look and say " method of teaching to read 

 —the method, that is to say, which deals with whole 

 words first, leaving their analysis to the time when 

 the learner has realised the meaningful character of 

 the printed page and is anxious to get at it. The 

 natural tendency to analysis comes out in the effort to 

 deal with new word-forms, and the teacher may profit- 

 ably act as guide. Miss Foxley's experiments'had led 

 her to the same conclusions as those reached by Mr. 

 Dumville. Dr. Brown and Dr. Rusk followed with 

 accounts of movement in writing. The pedagogical 

 consequences of these analyses were not, however, 

 discussed. 



_ Friday's meeting was devoted to the burning ques- 

 tion of the relation of the school to future vocation, j 



Mr. J. W. Peck, until recently clerk to the Edinburgh 

 School Board, gave a lucid account of the way in 

 vifhich his authority attempted to meet the vocational 

 call in the evening continuation schools of the city. 

 Out of the 17,000 folk between fourteen and eighteen 

 years of age, 12,000 were actually reached by their 

 scheme — a purely voluntary one, as they have not 

 put into operation the compulsory powers vested in 

 them by the Act of 1908. The freedom of choice left 

 to the pupils produced a want of balance in their 

 work; the subjects having a directly utilitarian value 

 were unduly favoured. Thus only 2| per cent, took 

 courses in civics, and only 10 per cent, pursued English 

 studies. Mr. Peck favoured some form of compulsion, 

 as only in that way would they reach the outstanding 

 5000, and a reasonable curriculum be ensured. Mr. 

 Holland showed us some of the difficulties of relating 

 education to vocation, at any rale in the day school. 

 The division of labour was so minute in his own dis- 

 trict that a man might spend his working life on 

 making the ninety-fifth part of a shoe. How exactly 

 the difficulty was to be overcome Mr. Holland was not 

 quite clear, although he was convinced that school 

 work should, and could, be made more meaningful 

 to the pupils. 



Miss Faithfull spoke with conviction against allow- 

 ing education to be determined by vocation. Her plea 

 was for a liberal education in the old-fashioned sense 

 of that word. She would deny that a training could 

 be both liberal and vocational. Her voice was, how- 

 ever, a solitary one. Miss Burstall, of the Manchester 

 High School, was wholeheartedly in favour of giving 

 a vocational turn to the education of girls. She had 

 worked in that direction in her own school with un- 

 qualified success. School was no longer a bore to 

 girls who had at one time chafed under the exercises 

 which seemed to lead nowhere. Mr. Reid spoke of the 

 question from the point of view of the engineer, and 

 Mr. Ferguson told the section of the successful effort 

 to " liberalise " the vocation of cardboard-box makers 

 in the Bourneville works. 



An interesting review of the present position of 

 mathematical teaching was opened by Dr. T. P. Nunn, 

 followed by Drs. Pinkerton and Milne, and Mr. Eggar. 

 The first three speakers were at one in their defence 

 of the attempt to humanise school mathematics, even 

 at the expense of dexterity in dealing with complex 

 mathematical expressions — at any rate, in the initial 

 stages. Mr. Eggar voiced a doubt as to the position 

 in geometry, and Prof. Silvanus Thompson supported 

 him in saying that reformers had often gone too far 

 — further than Prof. Perry himself ever intended. Both 

 Prof. Thompson and Principal Griffiths felt that a 

 definite mathematical quality had been weakened or 

 lost in the abandonment of Euclid, and that this loss 

 would continue until some adequate substitute had 

 been found. 



Scotch experience in the matter of leaving certifi- 

 cates was described by Mr. Strong and Mr. Donne, 

 and the Scotch Education Department was attacked 

 by Principal Sir J. Donaldson, who in a previous dis- 

 cussion had advocated individual liberty in the matter 

 of spelling. 



The section received various reports from committees 

 on (i) school books and eyesight, (2) the curriculum and 

 organisation of industrial and Poor Law schools, and 

 (3) the overlapping between school and university. It is 

 hoped that the " books and eyesight " report will be 

 circulated very widely amongst education authorities. 

 It is clear, too, that there is much that needs amend- 

 ing in our industrial schools, especially perhaps in 

 those which are run on the subscriptions of the charit- 

 able, and are therefore less directly under public 

 control. 



NO. 2248, VOL. 90] 



