0CT013KR 1 I, I906J 



NA TURE 



591 



inodern universities. 1 1 is too of Ion fortjotten in this 

 country that the provision of universities is primarily a 

 national obligation, and that the State which is con- 

 tent to leave to private initiative and to individual 

 generosity the all-important work of raising and 

 endowing seats of the higher learning is neglecting 

 one of the most potent means for securing its own 

 vitality. The recognition by statesmen of this national 

 duty need not discourage local effort and enthusiasm ; 

 indeed, experience tends to show that both are 

 quiclvened in districts where such State universities 

 are established. The duty has been fully recognised 

 l>v foreign Governments, and the lavish generosity 

 "f the .State in Germanv and the United States was 

 ibly pointed out by .Sir Norman LocUyer in 1903. 

 Sir James Crichton Browne has repeated the warning 

 more recently. Speaking at the University of Leeds 

 at the beginning of the month, he said ; — 



" England has been remiss of late in perceiving and 

 promoting those interests that hinge on scientific and 

 medical research. In this direction Germany has stolen a 

 march upon us, for the various Governments in that Empire 

 have unstintedly provided their universities with fully- 

 equipped research laboratories, organised and conducted by 

 professorial directors." 



The importance of securing this exercise of what 

 should be regarded as a State prerogative consists, not 

 only in ensuring an immediate and adequate supply 

 of institutions of university standing, but — in an equal 

 degree — in realising the right atmosphere in the 

 university when it gets itself established. The 

 parochial spirit is fatal to university development. 

 The boy proceeding from the school to the university 

 should pass from an institution dominated bv local 

 aspirations to one imbued with Imperial instincts, 

 where thought is unfettered and ambitions are free to 

 soar. Sir James Crichton Browne expressed the same 

 thought very distinctlv at Leeds when he re- 

 marked : — 



It would be a misfortune to a boy to pass from a 

 secondary school to a university in the ne.xt street, where 

 he would meet as his fellow-students only his old school- 

 fellows, and where, however amply fed with knowledge, 

 he would still be surrounded by the same traditions and 

 associations and shop amongst which he had been brought 

 up. A provincial university is a contradiction in terms. 

 What is wanted is a group of territorial universities, each 

 with distinctive features of its own, specially adapting it 

 to its environment, but all affording the most liberal in- 

 struction, the finest culture, the best intellectual discipline 

 of the day, and collectively meeting the higher educational 

 needs of the whole country." 



Another point made by Lord Strathcona mav be 

 considered profitably in conclusion. Speaking of 

 American universities, the Chancellor said : — 



" They found out long ago that law and medicine and 

 theology are not the only legitimate points of academic 

 study ; and in their faculties of applied science they are 

 training their young men to do work that is most loudly 

 called for. They have never accepted the view that uni- 

 versities must necessarily be institutions cloistered and 

 apart from the main current of public life and service. 

 On the contrary, they make a training for citizenship and 

 for public usefulness the basis and foundation of much of 

 their educational activity. The reward they have is that 

 — fully as much as we do here — thev find their alumni 

 in every walk of life, not in the 'learned professions ' 

 only ; and some of the most notable benefactions which 

 the American universities have lately received come from 

 men whose desire it is to connect them still more closelv 

 with practical work." 



In other words, a university training is valuable 

 in every department of work. The culture which is 



VO. 1928, VOL. 74] 



the gift of every living university to each of its sons 

 is capable, in addition to equipping for remunerative 

 labour, of .'dfording inlelleclual guidance in all life's 

 dilTiculties, of encouraging individuality, and of pro- 

 moting a symmetrical intellectual development. 

 Besides providing men able to compete worthily in 

 the internation.il struggle for industrial supremacy, 

 the modernised university, which is actually the crown 

 .and summit of a .sanely planned system of secondary 

 and elementary education, will send out men of wid" 

 svmpathies, above insular prejudices, and in all things 

 dominated bv a sweet reasonableness. 



NOTES. 



The seventh annual Huxley memorial lecture of the 

 .\nthropological Institute will be given on Thursday, 

 November i, at 8.30 p.m., in the theatre of the Civil 

 Service Commission, Burlington Gardens, W., when Prof. 

 W. M. Flinders Peirie, F.R.S., will deliver an address on 

 " Migrations." Tickets can be obtained on application 

 to the secretary of the institute, 3 Hanover Square, VV. 



The inaugural meeting of the session of Guy's Hospital 

 Pupils' Physical Society will be held on Saturday next, 

 October 13, when Prof. T. Clifford .'Vllbutt, F.R.S., will 

 deliver an address on "Words and Things." The chair 

 will be taken at 8 o'clock by Sir Samuel Wilks, F.R.S. 



Dr. Thomas Harrison, formerly Chancellor of the Uni- 

 versity of New Brunswick, died on September 18 in 

 Fredericton, at the age of sixty-eight. He was professor 

 of mathematics in the University from 1885 to 1892, and 

 Chancellor from 1892 until last August, when he retired 

 on a Carnegie pension. 



A Reuter message from Wellington, New Zealand, re- 

 ports that a monument to Captain Cook was unveiled on 

 October 8 in the presence of a large gathering of both 

 races at Poverty Bay, on the east coast of the North Island, 

 at the spot where the explorer first landed. 



We learn from the New York correspondent of the Times 

 that Sir William Perkin was the guest of honour at 

 Delmonico's on October 6 at a dinner given by four 

 hundred American chemists and manufacturers of chemical 

 products. Prof. Chandler presided, and many well-known 

 .Americans were among the guests. Dr. Nichols presented 

 to Sir William Perkin the first cast of a gold medal to be 

 known as the Perkin medal, and to be awarded each year 

 to some American chemist who has distinguished himself 

 in the field of research. Another gift to Sir W. Perkin 

 was a silver service as a personal tribute from the chemists 

 and manufacturers who were present. 



It was mentioned last week (p. 545) that the Governor 

 of Hong Kong bad appointed a committee to inquire into 

 the alleged failure of the observatory to give warning of 

 the violent storm that burst over the colony on 

 September 18. According to a Laffan message from Hong 

 Kong on October 8, the report of Zi-ka-wei Observatory 

 at Shanghai shows that a published warning was issued 

 against the passage of a typhoon two days before it struck 

 Hong Kong. The latter place was not warned because 

 for years the Hong Kong Observatory has refused to ex- 

 change warnings with the Jesuit observatories at Shanghai 

 and Manila. 



It is announced in the Lancet that ihe first International 

 Congress on Alimentary Hygiene and a Rational Diet for 

 Man, to be held at the Paris Facultv of Medicine on 



