140 



NA TURE 



[June 7, 1906 



March, 1906, al the Dresden Technische Hochschulc was 

 seventeen ; of these thirty-three we find that eight passed 

 the viva voce examination with distinction, whilst the ages 

 of the candidates varied from twenty-three to thirty-nine 

 years. As a reason for this small number of the students 

 who eventually take the degree, it is said that the great 

 majority of the students, after having passed through their 

 eight semesters of stiff study and obtained the coveted 

 diploma, qualifying them to style themselves " Dipl. Ing.," 

 have frequently neither the desire nor the means for the 

 extra semester's study imd research necessary for the 

 doctor's degree. 



There is no diminution in the generosity shown by 

 .American citizens towards higher education. Science- 

 announces that Columbia University has received 1000/. 

 for a mathematical prize, given by Mrs. Louise T. Hoyt. 

 Mr. Edward .S. Harkness has given 540/. to the morpho- 

 logical museum at the College of Physicians and .Surgeons, 

 and Mr. Archer M. Huntington 200/. to support a lecture- 

 ship in geography. In .April, 1905, Mr. .Andrew Carnegie 

 offered Morningside College, -Sioux City, Iowa, 10,000/. 

 on condition that they raised 30,000/. On April 3, iqo6, 

 his conditions for the gift were satisfied, and Mr. 

 Carnegie's cheque has been received. Mr. Carnegie has 

 also given the sum of 10,000/. to Drury College, at Spring- 

 field, Missouri, on condition that the college increases its 

 resources by the sum of 40,000/. About one-third of this 

 sum has been raised since January i. Mr. R. V. Cum- 

 mings has given 4000/. to the Field Museum of Natural 

 History to defray the expenses of an ethnological study of 

 the native tribes of the Philippine Islands. 



Albion College is now building a new biological labor- 

 atory, which is expected, we learn from Science, to be 

 completed in time for the opening of the college year in 

 September. Mr. .Andrew Carnegie has promised 4000/. to 

 the endowment fund of the college on condition that 16,000/. 

 additional is raised for the purpose. Mr. Carnegie has also 

 given Kenyon College 5000/. to aid poor students. A new 

 scholarship of 1000/. has been given to Barnard College, 

 Columbia University, by Mrs. George W. Collord in 

 memory of her brother. By the will of Roland Hayward, 

 of Milton, Mass., the museum of comparative zoology of 

 Harvard University will receive the testator's collection of 

 Coleoptera. 



.\ CLAUSE in the Education Bill before Parliament will, 

 if it eventually become part of the Act, abolish the 

 Teachers' Register. There is a strong feeling among 

 teachers in secondary schools and others that such a course 

 would be very prejudicial to the progress of secondary and 

 higher education, inasmuch as it would discourage the 

 movement to secure adequate training for secondary-school 

 teachers. .A meeting of the heads of training colleges for 

 secondary-school masters and mistresses in all parts of the 

 country was held at Bedford College, London, on May 26, 

 to consider the proposals of the Government, and after 

 discussion numerous resolutions were adopted unanimously. 

 These resolutions declared that, as a result of the proposal, 

 public confidence in the stability of the Board of Education 

 h,ix hf-en shaken seriously; that a part of the present 

 T.-isli-r fulfils a purpose that is useful and not otherwise 

 pi I \ iilrd for ; that grants and other administrative aids to 

 ihi- training of secondary-school teachers, as promised by 

 the Board of Education, do not form a substitute for a 

 register. The recognition of a profession, one resolution 

 insists, with powers over entrance to its ranks, is an 

 essential element in creating a respected and permanent 

 profession ; and another lays it down that in view of the 

 difference of conditions at the various centres of training 

 and of the necessity for experiments in the training of 

 teachers, the Board of Education should give as much 

 liberly as possible in the regulations under which the pre- 

 paration for diplomas is conducted. 



The current number of the University Review contains 

 a vigorous article by Mr. H. P. Biggar on the establish- 

 ment of a graduate school at Oxford. One of the chief 

 aims of a university should be, the article insists, the 

 extension of the bounds of knowledge in each department 

 of learning by masters who are capable of making fresh 

 discoveries therein. This object is constantly before the 



NO. 19 10, VOL. 74] 



minds of the authorities of German and French universi- 

 ties. In both these countries the graduation of students is 

 dependent upon their success in prosecuting research, and 

 from France and Germany instruction in research has 

 spread to the United States. Since 1876, Princeton, 

 Columbia, Chicago, Cornell, and other American universi- 

 ties have found themselves bound to establish graduate 

 schools where training may be obtained in research, and 

 from the United States post-graduate studies have spread 

 to Canada. With us, however, graduate studies are prac- 

 tically unknown. .At Oxford, for instance, which Mr. 

 Biggar takes as an example, because it is there alone that 

 Rhodes scholars may study, the University ceases to enforce 

 any test of proficiency beyond the degree of Bachelor of 

 Arts. The B.A. has but to continue to pay certain fees 

 to his college for about three and a half years after taking 

 his degree, when he may come up, pay some 20/., receive 

 the degree of Master of Arts, and become a member of 

 Convocation. What is wanted, Mr. Biggar maintains, 

 is to establish at Oxford a proper graduate school, that is 

 merely the reinforcement of a thesis, either for the M.A. 

 or for the doctor's degree. The important part is that 

 the increase of knowledge should be looked upon as one 

 of the main ends to be kept in view. Then, perhaps, the 

 Rhodes scholars will discontinue to experience the dis- 

 illusionment which awaits many of them, who come 

 hoping to find themselves among the makers of new know- 

 ledge ! and participating in the glorious work. 



The distinguished representatives of the University of 

 Paris and the College de France, together with guests 

 from nine other P'rench universities, arrived in London on 

 June 4,. and have during the week been entertained by the 

 University of London and the Modern Language .Associ- 

 ation. The visitors were met at Victoria Station by Sir 

 Edward Busk, \'ice-Chancellor of the University of London ; 

 Sir Arthur Rucker, principal of the University ; and many 

 members of different faculties of the University and of the 

 Modern Language Association. In the evening of June 4 

 the French guests were entertained at an informal dinner. 

 Sir Walter Palmer, chairman of the London University 

 organisation committee, in proposing in French the toast 

 of " Our Guests," said that the visit is a unique fact in 

 the annals of university life, which will long remain 

 imprinted on our hearts as a new phase in the scientific 

 and literary development of the two nations represented. 

 What could be of happier augury than so distinguished 

 an assembly of men of letters and of science leaving their 

 country and paying a visit to their colleagues in order to 

 draw closer still the bonds existing between the arts and 

 the sciences of the two countries? M. Bayet, director of 

 higher education at the Ministry of Public Instruction, re- 

 sponding in French, remarked that if there is a domain in 

 which the entente cordiale has its place it is the domain 

 of letters, science, and art. It has long had its place there, 

 for if we reascend the current of the centuries we find that 

 this entente cordiale has existed almost always between 

 England and France. We are creditors and debtors of each 

 other. Frenchmen, he said, salute the profound influence 

 which England has exerted upon them in the domain of 

 letters, science, and art. They know the English writers, 

 poets, and philosophers, they love thein, they have drawn 

 inspiration from them, and in their hearts they associate 

 themselves with the cult of great writers and thinkers. 

 M. Lippmann, who responded for the faculty of science 

 of the University of Paris, spoke in English, and said 

 science is not bounded by the Channel nor has it a local 

 habitation. There is but one geometry throughout the 

 world. The laws of nature reach beyond the stars. For 

 that reason the guests feel at home in any place among 

 the brotherhood of scientific men. He continued, it is a 

 happy dispensation that a university should have been 

 founded within the precincts of this huge citv. London is 

 gigantic in size, wealth, and might ; its shipping is un- 

 rivalled, its commercial activity unexampled ; but the greater 

 the pressure of business, the heavier the load of accumu- 

 lated wealth, the more needful it is to augment the power 

 of the priceless element which is the soul of a university, 

 the more so as the experimental work done in laboratories 

 and in experimental research of any kind is the prime 

 source of industrial progress, as well as an antidote to 



