February 13, 1913] 



NATURE 



661 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — The Board of Anthropological Studies 

 has recommended to the Senate the establishment of 

 a tripos examination in anthropology, which shall 

 rank as equivalent to the second part of any of the 

 existing triposes and be opeo to candidates on the 

 same conditions. The board feels strongly that fami- 

 liarity with the material of modern anthropology and 

 with the scientific methods which it employs must 

 prove of great value to those students who have 

 received a training in theology, law, history, linguis- 

 tics, economics, and kindred subjects, and more 

 especially to those who intend to undertake research. 

 From all candidates for such a tripos the board con- 

 siders that a general knowledge of anthropology as 

 well as a more detailed knowledge of a selected geo- 

 graphical area should be required. In order to meet 

 the varying interests of candidates, the board is of 

 opinion that in each year two areas should be pre- 

 scribed by the board, and that candidates should be 

 allowed the option of making a detailed study of the 

 anthropology of one of these areas. 



Mr. Rudolf Albert Peters, of Gonville and Caius 

 College, has been elected to the Benn W. Levy 

 studentship. The appointment is for one year. 



The Vice-Chancellor has appointed the Right 

 Hon. the Earl Curzon of Kedleston, Chancellor of the 

 University of Oxford, to the ofifice of reader on Sir 

 Robert Rede's foundation for the present year. The 

 lecture will be delivered in the Easter term, and its 

 subject will be "Modern Parliamentary Eloquence." 



Sir Dorabji J. Tata has announced his intention 

 of giving to the Forestry School loo/. a year for five 

 years, from March, 1913, for instruction in forestry 

 which will be of benefit to India. 



At a special Convocation of the University of Cal- 

 cutta, held on January 25, the honorary degree of 

 doctor of science was conferred upon Dr. A. R. For- 

 syth, F.R.S. 



The governors of the Wye Agricultural College have 

 approved of the purchase of twenty-two acres of land 

 situated at Mailing for a fruit research station, and 

 have also decided to institute during the summer a 

 course of specialised instruction in entomologv and 

 mycology for county instructors of horticulture, 

 towards the cost of which the Board of Agriculture 

 will be prepared to make a grant. 



We learn from Science that the will of Alfred Sam- 

 son, who died recently at Brussels, provides for an 

 endowment of 100,000/. for the Prussian Academy of 

 Sciences, and 2o,oooL for the Bavarian Academy of 

 Sciences, at Berlin and Munich. The endowments 

 are stated to be for investigations which afford a 

 prospect of raising the morality and well-being of the 

 individual and of social life, including the history and 

 prehistory of ethics, and anthropological, ethnological, 

 geographical, geological, and meteorological influences 

 as they have affected the mode of life, character, and 

 morals of man. 



On Tuesday, February 11, Mr. D. M. S. Watson 

 began a course of twenty lectures on the morpho- 

 genesis of the mammalia from a palaeontological point 

 of view, to be delivered at University College, Lon- 

 don, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, at 5 p.m. Dr. 

 F. W. Edridge-Green will deliver a course of four 

 lectures at the college on the physiologv of vision and 

 colour vision, on Wednesdays, at 5 p.m., beginning 

 on February 19. The lectures will be illustrated by 

 numerous e.xperiments and demonstrations. Applica- 

 tion for admission to both courses of lectures should 

 be made to the secretary of the college. 

 NO. 2259, VOL. 90] 



The Mansion House Committee of Associations for 

 Boys met at the Mansion House on February 5 to 

 confer with representatives of various Government 

 Departments on the advisability of forming an inter- 

 departmental committee to deal with questions con- 

 cerning the training and care of boyhood. The fol- 

 lowing resolution was passed : — " This conference 

 would welcome the formation of an inter-departmental 

 committee of the State Departments concerned with 

 the welfare of boys, which should consider questions 

 regarding moral, physical, and industrial education, 

 and also work in closer cooperation with the voluntary 

 associations in the United Kingdom, now numbering 

 280,000 boys, while leaving them free to pursue the 

 ends for which they were established." 



A Eugenics Education Conference is to be held at 

 the University of London, South Kensington, on 

 March i. Major L. Darwin, president of the 

 Eugenics Education Society, will deliver his presi- 

 dential address, taking for his subject, "The Eugenic 

 Ideal." During the meeting Canon Lyttelton, head- 

 master of Eton College, will speak on racial respon- 

 sibility as a factor in the formation of character, and 

 Prof. J. Arthur Thomson, professor of natural history 

 in Aberdeen University, will open a discussion on the 

 method of introducing the eugenic ideal into schools. 

 At the close of the meeting, should it appear to be in 

 accordance with the general feeling of the meeting, 

 Major Darwin will propose, "That the Minister of 

 Education be asked to receive a deputation requesting 

 an inquiry as to the advisability of encouraging the 

 presentation of the idea of racial responsibility to 

 students in training', and children at school." 



Mr. G. a. Wills and his brother, Mr. H. W. 

 W'ills, have offered to the council of Bristol Univer- 

 sity the sum of 150,000/. for the extension of the 

 L'niversity buildings. Their proposal is to erect a 

 building that shall not only include a large hall, 

 libraries, council chamber, offices for the registrar and 

 staff, lecture-rooms, and a main entrance, but also 

 present to the chief thoroughfare an architectural 

 elevation at once worthy of the University and an 

 ornament to the city. The donors also sug- 

 gest a small committee to act with them in carrying 

 out the scheme, and lay down the following condi- 

 tions : — Not less than 20,000/. is to be set aside for an 

 endowment for the expenses of lighting and heating 

 and the other establishment charges it will entail. 

 The work is to begin not later than the spring of next 

 y-ear, and to be completed not later than 1917. The 

 whole sum is to be paid when the building contract 

 is signed. In addition to this generous offer, the 

 council has received a letter from Mr. \\'. Melville 

 W'ills, of the same family, offering the sum of 20,000/. 

 in memory of his father, Mr. H. Overton Wills, in 

 augmentation of the general endowment fund of the 

 LTniversity. The council has accepted the offers 

 gratefully. 



Prof. E. A. Schafer was entertained at dinner by 

 the Edinburgh Liniversity Club in Sheffield on 

 February 8. During the course of a speech, we learn 

 from The Times, he complained of the lack of State 

 help for universities in this country. Great Britain 

 does not recognise its responsibilities in this respect. 

 Prof. Schafer said the State makes miserable grants 

 and attaches conditions sometimes which cannot be 

 fulfilled. We ought to take a lesson from other 

 nations. Some towns support their universities, but 

 the Universitv of Edinburgh has no support from its 

 city, although the University is the mainstay of Edin- 

 burgh's prosperity. Speaking of the training of 

 doctors, he remarked that the tenure given to the 

 medical curriculum is all too short to obtain the 



