September 27, 1906J 



NA TURE 



555 



CandoUe, Prof. Deissmann, Prof. Yves Delage, Dr. Anton 

 Dohrn, Prof. A. Giard, Prof. H. Hoffding, Prof. F. 

 Hueppe, Prof. Jensen, Prof. Lombroso, Prof. Matsumura, 

 I'rof. Mendel^elT, Prof. Mcnschutkin, Prof. Hugo Miinster- 

 berg, Prof. W. Ostwald, Prof. Giuseppe Veronese, Prof. 

 Paul Vinogradoff, Prof. J. VV. Wijhe, and Prof. Wcichsel- 

 bauin. The lecture-rooms, laboratories, and other buildings 

 which will be opened by the King to-day have cost 

 more than 200,000/. to erect and equip. The new block 

 completes the quadrangle, and includes new class-rooms 

 and laboratories for physiology, geology, and agriculture ; 

 new rooms for education, medicine, modern languages, and 

 other subjects ; a new library for scientific literature, and 

 new offices. We hope to give in our next number a de- 

 scription of this extension of the University, and an account 

 of the brjlliant ceremonies with which it has been 

 inaugurated. 



The next session of the South-Eastern Agricultural 

 College, Wye, will commence on October i, and the 

 inaugural address will be delivered by Dr. H. E. Arm- 

 strong, F.R.'S., on October 2. A conference of fruit 

 growers will be held at the college on October 22, when 

 discussions on methods of planting, fungus diseases, insect 

 attacks, strawberry culture, will be opened by Messrs. S. U. 

 Pickering, F.R.S., E. C. .Salmon, F. V. Theobald, and 

 W. P. Wright. The chair will be taken by Mr. Laurence 

 Hardy, M.P. Those wishing to attend the conference 

 should send their names to the principal of the college. 



On October 11 Sir William Anson will distribute the 

 prizes awarded to students in the evening classes of the 

 Royal Technical Institute, Salford. The calendar of the 

 institute for the session 1906-7 contains the announcement 

 that all intending students under sixteen years of age will, 

 before admission to the evening classes, be required to pass 

 an entrance examination in elementary mathematics and 

 English, or to satisfy the principal that they possess the 

 requisite preliminary knowledge. Those who do not 

 possess the knowledge necessary to pass the entrance 

 examination are recommended to join one of the evening 

 schools which have been instituted in various parts of 

 Salford, and at which the required preparation is provided. 

 It is intended that next year all under seventeen years of 

 age shall furnish evidence of the possession of the requisite 

 preliminary knowledge. 



In the early days of the movement for the higher educa- 

 tion of women, one of its most active workers was Mrs. 

 William Grey, whose death on September 19 at the 

 advanced age of ninety years was announced in the Times 

 of September 21. Mrs. Grey's name was from the first 

 well known among those who .advocated and carried to a 

 successful result the foundation of high schools for girls 

 by combined private effort ; and the Girls' Public Day 

 School Company (Ltd.) was the outcome of this move- 

 ment. Springing out of the needs presently revealed by 

 the high schools came the establishment of a system of 

 training for secondary teachers. The idea was then com- 

 paratively new in England, and public opinion on the 

 subject had to be formed and fostered, as it was largely 

 through the work of Mrs. Grey. In recognition of her 

 labours the well-known Maria Grey Training College for 

 Women, now situated at Brondesbury, was named after 

 her. 



An inspiring address on educational methods and their 

 relation to science and industry, with particular reference 

 to pottery, was delivered by Prof. H. E. .Armstrong in the 

 Town Hall, Longton, on September 19. In the course of 

 his remarks, he said that workers in science have evolved 

 a method, the scientific method, involving the gradual and 

 cautious passage from the known to the unknown. 

 Workers in politics have no such method at their disposal. 

 Too often they are more or less ignorant of the real nature 

 and extent of the problems which they deal with and seek 

 to solve ; sentiment masters their actions. The application 

 of scientific method to public affairs is, consequently, be- 

 coming a matter of paramount importance. In all manu- 

 facturing districts science and industry must be brought 

 into an effective alliance. On no other basis are prosperity 

 and happiness possible, for the simple reason that, in these 



NO. 1926, VOL. 74] 



days, an industry that does not repose on a scientific basis 

 is one which has no proper knowledge of itself, science 

 being nothing more than organised systematic knowledge. 

 Scientific training, training in method, is required by all. 

 -Scientific knowledge, true knowledge, must be public 

 possession. The feeling is becoming general that some- 

 thing must be done to make our schools more effective 

 than they are. In a recent report of the Consultative Com- 

 mittee, the Board of Education is advised that the schools 

 have failed, in the past, to develop both the moral and 

 mental qualities which are desirable, and that we must 

 now strive to make the teaching far more practical, manual 

 training being openly and strongly advocated. We read, 

 moreover, " It would seem clear to the committee that the 

 thing needed is not only knowledge, but a right attitude 

 of mind, a mind confident in its own power to observe and 

 think, and in the habit of observing and thinking — a mind 

 in which interest makes for intelligence and intelligence 

 for interest." "The course," it is stated, " should consist 

 of three threads or strands, roughly to be termed 

 humanistic, scientific, and manual, and, in the case of 

 girls, domestic ; all higher elementary schools should give 

 this threefold instruction." Though these views have been 

 urged by many educational reformers for thirty years or 

 more, the doctrine they involve is really quite revolu- 

 tionary coming from such a quarter, especially as it is 

 directed to the Board of Education, which treats manual 

 training as a special subject for the select few. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 



Royal Society, December 14, 1905. — "Observations on 

 the Development of Ornithorhynchus." By Prof. J. T. 

 Wilson and Dr. J. P. Hill. Communicated by Sir William 

 Turner, K.C.B., F.R.S. 



The paper treats of certain stages in the intra-uterine 

 development of the egg of Ornithorhynchus. The following 

 are points of more special interest among those set forth 

 in the extended paper : — 



(a) The very early differentiation of the layer of yolk- 

 entoderm surrounding the yolk-mass of the monotreme 



egg- 



(b) The original entire independence of the primitive 

 streak from the primitive knot and its " gastrulation- 

 cavity. " 



(c) The subsequent intimate approximation of these struc- 

 tures. 



(d) The early appearance of an area of special differenti- 

 ation in the vicinity of the primitive streak in the early 

 blastoderm, and the later conversion of this " primitive- 

 streak-area " into an " embryonic area " proper, by the 

 annexation of the region surrounding the " primitive " or 

 " archenteric " knot. 



(e) The precise mode of disappearance of the ventral 

 wall or floor of the archenteric- or invagination-cavity. 



(/) The occurrence of peculiar segmental cell-masses in 

 the substance of the " primitive knot," where that con- 

 stitutes the parietes of an archenteric canal or its repre- 

 sentative. 



(g) The diagrammatically clear demonstration of various 

 features of neural development, including the well-marked 

 neuromeric segmentation of the cephalic region of the 

 flattened medullary plate, the differentiation of early plate- 

 like ganglionic expansions of the neural crest in the 

 cephalic region, the presence of various cellular connections 

 between the cephalic ganglionic plates and certain of the 

 neuromeric segments of the medullary plate. 



(h) The relative insignificance of the " archencephalic " 

 subdivision of the cephalic portion of the medullary plate, 

 from which the fore-brain and most, if not all, of the mid- 

 brain are derived. 



June 28. — " Note on the Production of Secondary 

 Rays by a Rays from Polonium." By W. H. Logeman. 

 Communicated by Prof. J. J. Thomson, F.R.S. 



The author describes results which were obtained in the 

 course of some experiments on the slowly-moving negative 



