January i6, 19 13] 



NATURE 



547 



coordinated and complete system of education 

 have long urged the need for action on the part 

 of the State if this nation is, in the coming keen 

 competition for the markets of the world, not 

 to be outclassed by nations which have organised 

 their educational forces. 



It may be hoped that this great question will 

 be approached in the spirit of Lord Haldane's 

 remarks, and that our legislators will unite in 

 building up a complete national system of educa- 

 tion suited to modern needs. 



In the course of his address Lord Haldane 

 said : — 



. In what I am going to say I am not speaking 

 casually, or with any light sense of responsibility, 

 blit, after consulting with die Prime Minister and the 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer and Mr. Pease, we have 

 decided that this question is the next and tlie most 

 urgent of the great social problems we have to take 

 up. Of course, it is education. The state of educa- 

 tion in this countrj' — elementary, secondary, - and 

 higher — is chaotic, and my colleagues and I feel that , 

 the time has come when a step forward must be taken 

 and on no small scale. As a second message, Mr. 

 Lloyd George sends word that his heart is in this ques- 

 tion just as it is .in insurance, and that he is ready to 

 throw himself into it with the whole-heartedness with 

 which he threw himself into the insurance question. 

 After consultation that is what we think. As a nation 

 England has never been sufficiently interested in 

 education to stir up its leaders about it. That arises 

 partly from the fact that the leaders themselves have 

 not . thrown themselves into the education question 

 sufficiently to stir up the nation. Now is the time 

 for the leaders to make an effort, and that is what 

 the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Ex- 

 chequer think. How is it to be done ? Education, if 

 it is to be interesting, must be an appeal to the spirit. 

 It must be an endeavour to raise the level intellectually 

 and morally of the coming generation, upon whose 

 superiority the country will depend in the days to 

 come to meet growing competition. It is worth 

 while making a sacrifice to bring about that result. 

 I do not want you to be under any illusion. It is a 

 tremendous question which we have before us. It is 

 a costly question, too, but I will point out that the 

 expenditure is productive expenditure. 



In looking at the balance-sheet in the matter we 

 must not look only at the debit items. If the nation 

 is educated as it should be, the charge for old-age 

 pensions will be smaller than it is now, because there 

 will be fewer people left with less than 13Z. a year. 

 Income tax will yield more, because more people will 

 be over the income lax limit. The taxes will yield 

 more because the production of the country will be 

 greater. Education means increased power of pro- 

 duction. Then the bill on what I may call the nega- 

 tive side of the account will be smaller. Smaller 

 payments will be necessary on account of crime and 

 drunkenness. All social shortcomings will be less 

 among better educated people. We must keep up the 

 capacity of this country to lead in the production of 

 the world. The cost of education on a great scale, 

 even though it involves a great sacrifice, is a sacrifice 

 well made. 



We intend to try to make education an interesting 

 subject. I wish that we had Matthew .•Xrnold again 

 among us, writing as he wrote thirtv-five vears ago. 

 One thing is quite certain — what is about to be done for 

 the coming generation must not be done at the expense 

 of the ratepayer. In Scotland there is a university 

 to one and a half millions of the population ; in 



NO. 2255, VOL. go] 



England a university to three and a half millions. 

 Some remedy for that must surely be found. 



A national system of education must be not merely 

 elementary, secondary, or university, but it must be 

 one entire whole, and it must start from this — the 

 child must be made fit to receive the education. A 

 great step forward in that direction has already been 

 made. Then we must remember that though we are 

 making provision by which children may have chances 

 of becoming university students, the bulk of them 

 will not get beyond the elementary school, and full 

 provision must be made for them to do the best that 

 thev can within their limits. We must do something 

 substantial in the way of making the teacher's pro- 

 fession more popular. 



I am not speaking in the air on this question. We 

 have been busy with the experts for some time, and 

 I should not have ventured to speak as I have done 

 if we did not see pretty clearly the path along 

 which we are going. When we come to work out 

 these things comprehensively it is marvellous how 

 difficulties disappear. I see no reason to despair of 

 our accomplishing rapidly such a reform in our educa- 

 tional system as should put us at least on a level 

 with any other nation in the world. 



The scientific world has lost one of its veterans by 

 the death of Louis Paul Cailletet in Paris on January 

 5. Born in 1832, at Chatillon-sur-Seine, he studied 

 at the School of Mines and the Faculty of Sciences at 

 Paris. His first work was in metallurgy, and he 

 made many scientific investigations into the principles 

 of cementation and puddling. Later work on the 

 theory of smelting led him to investigate the properties 

 of gases under pressure. As a result of an admirable 

 series of researches he was able to announce in 1877 

 that he had liquefied oxygen by cooling produced by 

 sudden release from considerable pressure. The same 

 result was obtained by Pictet at Geneva in the same 

 year by a different method, and quite independently. 

 Later investigations enabled all the so-called per- 

 manent gases to be liquefied with the exception of 

 hydrogen, which was left for Wroblewsky, who had 

 been his pupil, and much of the later work of Amagat, 

 Dewar, Kamerlingh Onnes, Linde, and Claude was 

 the direct result of his methods and discoveries. In 

 conjunction with Mathias, investigations on vapour 

 pressures and critical volumes led to the discovery 

 of the law of the rectilinear diameter, which has had 

 such fruitful results. Always devoted to scientific 

 work, he became much interested in aviation, acting 

 for many years as the president of the Aero Club of 

 France. The .\cademy of Sciences elected him a 

 corresponding member in 1877, and gave him the 

 Jecker prize and elected him an academician in 1884. 

 In igio, on the occasion of his academic jubilee, he 

 was proclaimed the father of modern cryogenics. 



Zoologists and naturalists interested in the big 

 game of East Africa, and sportsmen wanting to know 

 something of the country, of the methods of transport 

 and of the paraphernalia for a hunting trip, will not 

 regret spending a couple of hours at the Holborn 

 Empire, where some of the results of Mr. P. J. 

 Rainey's recent photographic studies of wild animals 

 are being shown by the Jungle Film Company of 



