65P 



NATURE 



[October 25, 1906 



other contributions, the most important are tliose con- 

 tributed by the society's botanist, Mr. W. L. Balls, on 

 the physiology of a simple parasite, and the sexuality of 

 cotton. The first paper gives an account of a damping-off 

 fungus which produces a disease among seedlings known 

 to the American cotton grower as " sore-shin." Mr. Balls 

 attributes the failure of seedling cottons in Egypt chiefly 

 to the attacks of this fungus. The actual damage done 

 varies greatly in different seasons. Weather which is too 

 cold for the young cotton plant is favourable to the para- 

 site, and " sore-shin " is 'largely a question of tempera- 

 ture. Remedies are now being sought for, and it is 

 suggested that careful attention to the seed-bed might 

 prevent, or at least mitigate, the disease. Mr. Balls's 

 second paper describes some cytological work undertaken 

 as a preliminary to investigations on questions of heredity. 

 The descriptions and drawings of the se.K cells, of fertil- 

 isation, and of the seed should prove of interest and value 

 to economic botanists engaged upon the improvement of 

 the cotton plant. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



C.iMEKiDGE. — Combined examinations for sixty-six entrance 

 scholarships and various exhibitions at Pembroke, Gonville 

 and Caius, King's, Jesus, Christ's, St. John's, and 

 Emmanuel Colleges will be held on Tuesday, December 4, 

 and following days. Mathematics, classics, and natural 

 sciences will be the subjects of examination at all these 

 colleges. Forms of application for admission to the examin- 

 ation at the respective colleges may be obtained as 

 follows : — Pembroke College, \V. S. Hadley ; Gonville and 

 Caius College, the Master; King's College, W. H. 

 Macaulay ; Jesus College, A. Gray ; Christ's College, Rev. 

 J. \V. Cartmell; St. John's College, Dr. J. R. Tanner; 

 Emmanuel College, the Master, from any of whom further 

 information respecting the scholarships and other matters 

 connected with the several colleges may be obtained. 



."^t a meeting of the master and fellows of Pembroke 

 College, held on October 10, Mr. C. F. Russell, formerly 

 scholar of the college, was elected to a fellowship. Mr. 

 Russell was Bell scholar in 1902, and was bracketed 

 fourteenth wrangler in the mathematical tripos, part i., 

 1Q04 ; he was placed in the second division of the first class 

 in the mathematical tripos, part ii., 1905, and was Smith's 

 prizeman in 1906. 



The Gedge prize has been awarded to P. P. Laidlaw, 

 of St. John's College, for his essay entitled " Some Observ- 

 ations on Blood Pigments." 



Dr. Hobson, Prof. Larmcr, Prof. H. Lamb, Trinity 

 College, professor of mathematics at \'ictoria University, 

 Manchester, and E. W. Barnes, Trinity College, have been 

 nominated examiners for part ii. of the mathematical tripos 

 in 1907, arid Prof. Hopkinson and W. H. Macaulay, of 

 King's College, examiners for the qualifying examination 

 for the mechanical sciences tripos in the current academical 

 vear. 



W. E. Di.xon, of Downing College, and R. Stockman 

 (Edinburgh), professor of materia medica and therapeutics 

 in the Universitv of Glasgow, have been nominated ex- 

 aminers in pharmacologv, and T. S, P. Strangeways, St. 

 John's College, and T. Ritchie (Edinburgh), examiners in 

 general pathology for the first part of the third examin- 

 ation for the degree of M.B. in the current academical 

 vear. 



Prof. J. A. Ewing, King's College, has been nominated 

 an elector to the John Winbolt prize in civil engineering 

 to be awarded in the year 1907 ; and Dr. Marr and Dr. 

 J. W. ludd examiners ifor the Sedgwick prize. 



Mr. J. J. Lister, fellow of St. John's College, has been 

 nominated a member of the board of electors to the pro- 

 fessorship of zoology and comparative anatomy until 

 Februarv 20, 1913. in succession to the late Prof. W. F. R. 

 W'eldon. 



Mr. J. F. M. Drummond, Caius College, Cambridge, 

 furmerlv Frank Smart student in botany, has been appointed 

 lecturer in botany at .Armstrong College, Newcastle-upon- 



The annual general meeting of the Association of 

 Teachers in Technical Institutes will be held at the Birk- 

 beck College, London, on Saturday, October 27, com- 

 mencing at 3 p.m. The chair will be taken by Mr. A\'. J. 

 Lineham, president of the association. 



The Peking correspondent of the Times, in a telegram 

 of October 21, announces the abolition of the old system 

 o-f examinations in China. In partial substitution there 

 will be held an annual examination in Peking of Chinese 

 graduates educated abroad. This year all Chinese holding 

 foreign diplomas were invited by the Board of F^ducation 

 to submit themselves for examination in the subjects they 

 studied abroad. About fifty responded, of whom forty-two 

 were admitted, twenty-three with Japanese degrees, seven- 

 teen with American, and one each with German and 

 English. At the examinations nine were granted the 

 Chinese doctorate, twenty-three the degree of Master of 

 Arts, and ten were rejected. 



The Bristol Education Committee has placed the Castle 

 Council Schools, embracing large buildings which accom- 

 modated more than a thousand children, at the disposal of 

 the governors and principal of the Merchant Venturers' 

 Technical College, Bristol, which was recently damaged 

 seriously by fire. These schools are being fitted with the 

 necessary lecture theatres, laboratories, and workshops 

 with all possible speed, and, meanwhile, other institutions 

 in Bristol are lending their lecture theatres and laboratories. 

 Fortunately a large part of the newest machinery of the 

 engineering department of the college, especially the experi- 

 mental engines and dynamos, which cost ihore than 2500/., 

 have been saved, as they were placed in a separate build- 

 ing containing many of the college workshops, and situated 

 at some distance from the one injured by the fire; more- 

 over, the basement of the main building has suffered 

 comparatively little, and in this are the mechanical and 

 electrical engineering laboratories and the engineering 

 workshop. 



The new agricultural college and research institute for 

 Madras is now in course of erection. In 1905 a grant to 

 the Presidency by the Government of India of 10,000/. per 

 annum, which was subsequently increased to 20,000/., 

 added to the allotments made by the Government of 

 Madras, removed all financial difficulty experienced by the 

 Madras Agricultural Department, and will in time provide 

 the necessary staff. The result of this improved financial 

 position was the decision of Government to close the 

 agricultural college at Saidapet, and establish a new 

 college and research institute adequately equipped with 

 laboratories and class-rooms with a suitable farm near 

 Coimbatore. The staff will consist of an expert agri- 

 culturist as the principal of the college, a superintendent 

 of the central farm, a Government botanist, and an agri- 

 cultural chemist. Ultimately an entomologist and myco- 

 logist may be added to the staff, which will combine teach- 

 ing with research work. The institution is to fulfil a 

 two-fold purpose. Problems connected with the agriculture 

 of the presidency will be studied in the laboratory and the 

 field, while students will be given a general education in 

 all branches of agricultural science. The farm will afford 

 a field for experience and for a test of laboratory research, 

 as well as a training ground for students, in the practical 

 application of science to agriculture. 



.\n addition to the University of Edinburgh Union was 

 opened on October 19 by Mr. Haldane, the Lord Rector. 

 Mr. Balfour, the Chancellor of the University, presided .at 

 the ceremony, and in the course of a speech delivered in 

 calling upon the Lord Rector, directed attention to the 

 true functions of a university. No university, he said, can 

 be described as properly equipped which merely consists 

 of an adequate professoriate, adequate lecture-rooms, 

 adequate scientific apparatus, which only satisfies the needs, 

 exacting though they are, of modern science and modern 

 education. Something more than that is required if a 

 university is to do all that it is capable of doing for the 

 education of the young men of this country. A university 

 life which consists only of the relation between the teachers 

 and the taught, between the professor and the student, is 

 but half a iinivcrsitv life. The other half consists of the 



NO 1930, VOL. 74] 



