290 



NA TURE 



[July 26, 190b 



all who read it will find it delightful. It is full 

 of information about men and matters, an epitome 

 ill non-technical language of that part of the history 

 of our own times in which Sir Henry has played a 

 distinguished part. It is enlivened with many good 

 stories, especially of his great master and lifelong 

 friend Baron Bunsen, and adorned with many excel- 

 lent portraits of the scientific giants of the nineteenth 

 century. Though written, as we have said, for the 

 use of his family in the first instance, this book 

 of memories is essentially a public document, a 

 record of many matters, not commonly known, during 

 an important period. For details of these the book 

 itself must be consulted, since a mere enumeration of 

 the names of those with whom its author has worked 

 in public affairs, or a list of the debates, scientific, 

 educational, industrial and political, in which he has 

 taken part would overcrowd the space available for 

 this notice. In its pages will be found records of 

 student life in Germany in the distant days when 

 it was scarcely possible, or at any rate very diffi- 

 cult, to become a chemist in any other country ; 

 stories about University College in the hey- 

 day of its youth, when De Morgan, Sharpey, 

 Graham, Liston, and others of equal eminence 

 were among the professors, and Lister, Farrer- 

 Herschell, Bagehot, Jessel, Hutton, Henry Thomp- 

 son, and Edward Fry were, or recently had been, 

 among its students; much about the early history 

 of Owens College, which, when Roscoe joined 'the 

 staff, could boast only of thirty-five students, of whom 

 but fifteen were at work in the laboratory, and 

 of the gradual growth of the college in size and 

 dignity until it became the first of the new English 

 universities ; a rich mine of information about the 

 progress of technical education from the year 1883, 

 when a Roval Commission consisting of " Mr. Bern- 

 hard Samuelson, Mr. John Slagg, Mr. (now Sir) Swire 

 Smith, Mr. (now Sir) Philip Magnus, Mr. William 

 Woodall, and Sir Henry Roscoe " was appointed to 

 study and report on the then state of technical educa- 

 tion at home and abroad, and, again, about the recent 

 history of the University of London, of which Sir 

 Henry was for some time Vice-Chancellor, and many 

 other important matters. The book closes, as such 

 a book should, with a few pages which give us a 

 glimpse of the life of Sir Henry and Lady Roscoe 

 at Woodcote Lodge, their Surrey home. 



.^part from his scientific work, and the part he took 

 in founding Owens College, Sir Henry Roscoe's share 

 in the labours of the Royal Commission on Technical 

 Instruction and his subsequent labours on behalf of 

 technical and secondary education represent the great 

 feature in his public life. Sir Henry and his col- 

 leagues not only spent many months travelling in 

 this countrv and all over Europe for the public good, 

 but they did this at their own expense ; and, after 

 their report was published, many of them spared 

 neither time nor trouble in spreading abroad the 

 knowledge the)' had acquired of what was being done 

 by our competitors in other countries. One trembles 

 to think what might still be the state of technical 

 education in this country but for them and their 

 NO. I917, VOL. 74] 



unstinted labours. We should like to quote a few 

 passages from this part of the book, but want of space 

 makes this impossible. But there is one side of the 

 matter to which attention may well be directed at this 

 moment, when the question of national defence, or 

 some part of it, goes daily into the pot, and daily- 

 comes out of it again. 



It has often been said that the success of the 

 Germans in the Franco-German War depended on 

 the German schoolmaster. After the war this opinion 

 found voice also in France, and Sir Henry illustrates- 

 this by telling us that at Rouen he saw, tt his sur- 

 prise, in the school museum a Prussian soldier's 

 helmet. On asking why this was there, he was 

 told by the director that when the scholars 

 did not attend to their work it was his custom 

 to bring this helmet down, put it on the desk,, 

 and say, " Now, if you do not make progress 

 and learn properly this will happen to you again. 

 The surest way to bring it upon you is to 

 neglect your studies and grow up in ignorance, and 

 become inferior in intellectual training." "The dis- 

 play of this helmet," said the director, " never fails 

 to bring the blush of shame to the cheeks of my 

 students, and to rouse their patriotism and their zeal 

 for their studies." May we recommend this story to 

 the attention of Mr. Haldane, and still more to that 

 of the Minister for Education, and to politicians in 

 general, and suggest that it has for us in England 

 a moral also? Only here, alas! the men need to 

 learn the lesson it conveys as well as, and, indeed, 

 even more than, the boys. 



We cannot conclude without e.xpressing our admira- 

 tion of Lady Roscoe's contribution to this charm- 

 ing volume, viz. the e.xcellent reproduction of her 

 photograph "The Fisherman," which was recently 

 pronounced, by a very competent authority, to be 

 the best photograph by an English amateur that 

 they could suggest for insertion in an American 

 journal, and our hearty wish that Sir Henry and 

 Lady Roscoe may long remain among us to enjoy 

 their retreat in sunny Woodcote, where the great 

 chemist has crowned his scientific career by the almost 

 unique achievement of making both ends meet as an 

 amateur farmer. W. A. S. 



117TH WmES AND WITHOUT. 

 Telegraphy. By T. E. Herbert. Pp. xx4-9i2. 



(London : Whittaker and Co., 1906.) Price 6s. 6d. 



net. 

 The Principles of Electric Wave Telegraphy. By 



Dr. J. A. Fleming. Pp. xix-l-671. (London: 



Longmans, Green and Co., 1906.) Price 24,';. net. 

 Wireless Telegraphy. By Dr. Gustav Eichorn. 



Pp. x-(-ii6. (London: Charles Griffin and Co., 



Ltd., 1906.) Price 8s. 6d. net. 

 Wireless Telegraphy. By W. J. White. Pp. x+173. 



(London : T. C. and E. C. Jack, 1906.) Price is. • 



net. 

 f~\ F the numerous achievements of which the elec- 

 ^^^ trical engineer can boast, telegraphy is the one 

 of which he has the greatest reason to be proud. If 

 we combine with telegraphy the sister subject of 



