NA TURE 



[July 12, 1906 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



The Technical High School of Prague will celebrate its 

 hundredth anniversary in November next. Prof. Wilhelm 

 Gintl has been appointed rector for the year 1906-7. 



On July 4, the honorary degree of Sc.D. of Dublin 

 University was conferred upon Colonel David Bruce, C.B., 

 Mr. E. T. Whittalver, F.R.S., Astronomer Roval of 

 Ireland, and Sir A. E. Wright, F.R.S. 



Prof. C. Gr.\ebe has tendered his resignation of the 

 professorship of inorganic, organic, and technical chemistry 

 in Geneva Lfniversity, to take effect from October i, after 

 which date Prof. Graebe will be an honorary professor of 

 the University. 



The cost of the new metallurgical institute now being 

 erected in connection with the Technical High School at 

 .Aachen will be met chiefly by the voluntary contributions 

 of the Rhine and Westphalian metallurgical industries ; 

 the sum set apart for the actual buildings is 500,000 marks. 

 At the recent laying of the foundation stone. General- 

 director Springomm, as president of the Verein deutscher 

 EisenhCittenleute, expressed the sympathy and best wishes 

 of the society with the undertaking. 



Mr. F. C. Forth, principal of the Municipal Technical 

 Institute, Belfast, has sent us a copy of an interesting 

 article on the compilation of technical students' records 

 reprinted from the Journal of the Department of Agri- 

 culture and Technical Instruction for Ireland (vol. vi.. 

 No. 3). The system advocated of chronicling for ready 

 reference data relative to students' attendances, marks, 

 and successes has been devised to meet the requirements 

 of a large technical institute, and as it has now stood the 

 test of two years' working, the description of it should 

 prove a valuable guide to other technical institutions. 



.Scarcely a week passes without an announcement in 

 the American papers of some handsome contribution to 

 higher education from public-spirited citizens. In the last 

 issue of Science received we notice that at the commence- 

 ment of Brown Universitv it was announced that 32,400/. 

 had been subscribed for the John Hay Memorial Library, 

 thus securing the additional gift of 30,000!. by Mr. Andrew 

 Carnegie. Mr. D. W. Goodspeed, secretary of the board 

 of trustees of the LIniversity of Chicago, has announced a 

 gift of 52.000/. from Mr. John D. Rockefeller for current 

 expenses for the year beginning July 1. At the recent com- 

 mencement of Olivet College gifts aggregating 53,000,'. 

 were announced. Of this amount 43,000/. applies toward 

 the Carnegie endowment, leaving only 7000/. to be raised 

 to ensure receiving Mr. Carnegie's gift of 50,000/. By 

 the will of the late Prof. George A. Wentworth, of Phillips 

 Exeter .'Xcademy, 2000/. is bequeathed to the academy. 



The new Code of regulations for public elementary schools 

 marks a great advance on similar publications of a few- 

 years ago. The detailed schedules of former years, with 

 their minute instructions as to the work of separate 

 standards, are discontinued. Great prominence is given to 

 a few broad educational principles, on which all successful 

 school practice mi'St be based. The new code, in fact, 

 supplemented by the recently published excellent suggestions 

 for teachers, provides just that necessary official guidance 

 which should suffice to enable properly trained teachers to 

 adapt their procedure and curriculum to local conditions 

 and requirements. The tendency exhibited by the central 

 authority to give eflicient teachers a freer hand is satis- 

 factory, and we welcome it. A new scheme of arithmetic 

 is included in the Code, and it reflects the movement started 

 by the British .Association to eliminate from school arith- 

 metic all fanciful problems of little everyday use, and to 

 introduce practical measurements at an early stage. The 

 scheme in the new Code puts such measurements in the 

 Fifth .Standard work, but omits to state definitely in the 

 same section that such practical work with a scale of 

 inches and tenths, or centimetres and millimetres, is the 

 most satisfactory and natural introduction to decimals. 



NO. 191 5, VOL. 74.1 



Decimals are, of course, included in the scheme, but the 

 apparent omission referred to makes it appear that the 

 study of decimals is to be postponed until vulgar fractions 

 and mensuration have been mastered. Though the formal 

 study of decimals may be deferred until the Sixth Standard 

 is reached, the use of a decimally-divided scale for measure- 

 ments .shoulu certainly form part of the work in the 

 Fifth Standard at least, if not at an earlier stage. Men- 

 suration without decimals is an anachronism ; and the 

 Board of Education ought to state, through its inspectors or 

 otherwise, that use should be made of scales divided into 

 tenths, in the measureinents of rectangles and rectangular 

 solids, and of triangles, included in the course prescribed. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, December 14, 1905. — " An Investigation into 

 the Structure of the Lumbo-sacral-coccygeal Cord of the 

 Macaque Monkey (Macaciis sinicus)." By Mabel Purefoy 

 FitzGerald. Communicated by Prof. Francis Gotch, 

 F.R.S. 



From the examination of the cross-sections of the lumbo- 

 sacral-coccygeal cord of the Macaque monkey {Macacus 

 sinicus), it is seen that : — 



(1) The maximum section area of the cord, of the white 

 substance as a whole, as well as of the dorsal and the 

 ventro-lateral columns, is found in the fourth lumbar 

 region. 



(2) The maximum section area of the grey substance as 

 a whole, and of the dorsal and the ventral horns, is found 

 in the fifth lumbar region. 



(3) Reckoning the cross-sectional area of the cord as 

 100, the maximum percentage of the white substance as 

 a whole, and of the dorsal and the ventro-lateral columns, 

 is found in the first lumbar region. 



(4) The maximum percentage of the grey substance is 

 reached in the first coccygeal region. 



(5) Reckoning the total area of the grey substance in 

 each cross-section of the cord as 100, the maximum per- 

 centage of the dorsal horns is found in the third coccygeal 

 region, and that of the ventral horns in the fifth lumbar 

 region. 



January i8. — " Observations on the Life-history of 

 Leucocytes." Bv C. E. Walker. Communicated by 

 Prof. C. S. Sherrington, F.R.S. 



January 25. — " On the Origin of the Sertoli, or Foot- 

 cells of the Testis." By C. E. Walker and Miss .Alice L. 

 Embleton. Comnunicated bv Prof. C. S. Sherrington, 

 F.R.S. 



In animals, those cells set aside to produce definite 

 sexual elements go through two divisions, the first and 

 second maiotic (heterotype and homotype) divisions, and 

 are then, without any further division, converted directly 

 into spermatozoa. The same thing happens in the matura- 

 tion of the ovum. No post-maiotic (po'st-homotype) 

 divisions have hitherto been recorded. 



In plants, on the other hand, after the second maiotic 

 division has occurred, an apparently unlimited number of 

 generations may be produced of cells that have gone 

 through the maiotic phase, and consequently possess only 

 half the somatic number of chromosomes. In the first of 

 the above papers, the occurrence of maiotic phenomena is 

 recorded among the leucocytes and the cells which are 

 their immediate ancestors. .According to these observ- 

 ations, after the first and second maiotic divisions have 

 occurred, they are followed by an indefinite number of 

 generations of cells possessing only half the somatic com- 

 plement of chromosomes. The first maiotic division is 

 preceded by amitosis and mitosis of (he somatic character, 

 just as happens in the testes of many animals, if not in 

 all. It must be remembered that in certain plants only a 

 few of the cells which have gone through the maiotic phase 

 ever become sex cells. The others may form tissues having 

 somatic characters and functions. This parallel between 

 certain vegetable cells and leucocytes is carried further by 

 the observations recorded in the second of the above papers. 



Here it is stated that at an early stage in the develop- 



