174 



NA TURE 



[December 9, 1909 



about heights of windows or areas of window-space. In 

 England the Board of Education, in its Building Regula- 

 tion (1907), Rule 6, clause c, has laid down a foolish 

 rule : — " Skylights are objectionable. They cannot be 

 approved in school-rooms or class-rooms." That perfectly 

 monstrous provision ought to be at once repealed. The 

 universal experience of the textile industries, where 

 adequate lighting of spinning and weaving machinery is a 

 prime necessity, is that no method of lighting is so satis- 

 factory as skylights in roofs specially constructed to receive 

 light from the northern sky. 



Hitherto little attention has been paid by either local or 

 central authorities to conditions affecting the lighting of 

 factories and workshops. It is true that the factory in- 

 spectors require periodic whitewashing of factories, but 

 that is for sanitary reasons, not primarily to secure better 

 illumination. The Home (JfVice has its regulations as to 

 temperature and degree of moisture required or permissible 

 in the different classes of factories and workshops. Then 

 why not also similar regulations as to the proper amount 

 of illumination ? .Surely the eyesight of the workers is as 

 well worth protecting from injury as their lungs and their 

 limbs. So far as I am aware, Holland is the only country 

 in which legislation has fixed a statutory amount of 

 illumination in factories, the figure there being from to 

 to 15 candle-metre, equivalent, therefore, broadly to the 

 value of O'Q to 1-31; candle-foot. 



Architects are often blamed for deficiencies in the light- 

 ing of the buildings they design, perhaps more often for 

 the deficiencies found at night by artificial lighting than 

 for those of the lighting by day. For this the fault rests 

 no doubt largely with the persons who have installed the 

 lighting arrangements, and one must not blame the 

 architect too severely for having been as ignorant as all 

 the rest of the world about the principles of Illumination ; 

 but henceforward, when once it is known how much 

 illumination is renuired In the rooms of different kinds, the 

 architect ought in his specification to set down, with 

 appropriate numerical values, what degree of illumination 

 is required in the various parts of his building. 



I venture to suggest that it would be a good thing if. in 

 the public interest, our .society, or some committee 

 appointed by it, could draw up a model specification, or 

 model clauses for architects to Insert in their soecifications, 

 in which the proper way of prescribing the reouislte 

 amounts of Illumination in different classes of cases should 

 be set forth. 



Outside all these matters of more public interest, there 

 are topics enough to occupy our society for many months 

 to come. We shall have discussions on several interest- 

 ing subjects during next spring, and there are many 

 problems awaiting solution. When all else fails us, we 

 can turn to the eternal ouestion of the measurement of 

 colour. We have .nlso the long outstanding problem of 

 the production of light without heat, accomplished in nature 

 bv the fire-flv, but unrealised bv anv artificial lamn. We 

 rnight turn to discuss special cases, such as the flashing 

 lights of lighthouses, or the special lights needed in th» 

 hospital for the detection of rashes or the treatment of 

 disease. .Amid such endless ramifications of our subject 

 there is no fear of coming to a premature end of our pro- 

 gramme. There is. indeed, abimdance of work before us. 



UNIVERSTTV AND KDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



Cambridge. — Dr. Baker has been appointed chairman of 

 the examiners for p.nrt ii. of the mathematical tripos; Mr. 

 -A. Hutchinson, chairman of the examiners for the natural 

 sciences tripos; and Mr. H. W. V. Temperley, chairman 

 of the examiners for the economics tripos, iqio. 



Mr. A. E. Shipley has been appointed a manager of the 

 Balfour fund. 



Mr. J.^ E. Purvis has been appointed university lecturer 

 in chemistry and physics in their application to hvgiene 

 and preventive medicine for five years. 



The Walsingham medal for iqoq has been awarded to 

 Mr. L. J. Wills, for his essay entitled " The Fossiliferous 

 Lower Keuper Rocks of Worcestershire," and a second 

 NO. 2093, VOL. 82] 



medal to Mr. H. H. Thomas, for his essay entitled "• The 

 Leaves of Calamites (Calamocladus section), with Special 

 Reference to the Conditions under which they Grew." 



It is proposed that a grant of lool. be made from the 

 Worts fund to Mr. J. Romanes towards defraying the 

 expense of a journey to Costa Rica with the object of 

 studying the geology and geography of that country. 



The Earl of Crewe, chairman of the governors of the 

 Imperial College of Science and Technology, will distribute 

 the diplomas, medals, and prizes to the successful students 

 at the Royal College of Science on Thursday next, 

 December 16. Prof. Adam Sedgwick, F.R.S., wiii deliver 

 an address. 



Dr. H. a. Miers, F.R.S., principal of London Uni- 

 versity, will distribute the prizes and certificates at the 

 Sir John Cass Technical Institute, -Aldgate, on Thursday, 

 December 16. There will be an exhibition of students' 

 work and apparatus in the laboratories, workshops, and 

 other rooms of the institute. 



A coNFERENXE to dlscuss the needs of technical education 

 in Burma was held at Rangoon early in November. We 

 learn from the Pioneer Mail that Mr. J. G. Covernton, 

 Director of Public Instruction, in opening the discussion, 

 presented a brief sketch of what had been done in the past 

 in the way of technical education. He divided "-he work 

 of technical instruction into two main groups : — (i) those 

 connected with scientific professions, especially engineering ; 

 (2) those connected with ordinary country and home life. 

 He proposed that a central technical school for industrial 

 education in the vernacular should eventually be opened at 

 Insein in connection with the engineering school, and related 

 to all the selected vernacular schools for technical education 

 which may hereafter be established, and that pupils who 

 showed special aptitude for technical training should be 

 drafted to this central school. The instruction should be 

 in the vernacular, and its aim be to provide for a general 

 technical training for hand and eye. For trained pupils 

 who might hope to be skilled artisans in various crafts and 

 industries there should, the director said, be local industrial 

 schools in local industries. 



The report for 1908-9 on the work of the Department of 

 Technology of the City and Guilds of London Institute 

 has just been published. It abounds in interesting informa- 

 tion concerning the useful work being accomplished by the 

 department In the way of improving the technical education 

 of the country. At the last examinations held by the 

 department, 23,399 candidates were presented in technology 

 from 404 centres in the United Kingdom, and of these 

 13,665 passed. By the aid of advisory committees the insti- 

 tute is enabled, the report points out, to promote useful 

 relations between trade organisations and the schools in 

 which artisans and others receive their technical instruction. 

 The institute, too, has a system of inspection of trade 

 classes by professional experts, and during the session und'-r 

 review 107 centres were visited by members of the insti- 

 tute's staff for the examination, inspection, or organisation 

 of classes. The report also states that the independent 

 criticisms from examiners in whollv distinct subjects show 

 that many teachers, while undoubtediv using their best 

 efforts to acquaint the students with the technical details 

 of their trade, fail to obtain good results owing to their 

 giving instruction on wrong lines, paving too much atten- 

 tion to description and too little to the theorv of the suh- 

 iect and to the principles underlvlnij the work in which 

 they are engaged. This may be partially due to lack of 

 experience in teaching and failure to realise the difficulties 

 of their students, and in such cases a visit from nn 

 inspector, himself an experienced teacher In the same sub- 

 ject, would often do much to remedy the defects, more 

 especially if the visit can be repeated so as to enable the 

 instructor to avail himself of the inspector's experience 

 from time to time in the difficulties that arise. The Insti- 

 tute also concurs In ;> suggestion, made by its inspectors, 

 that If the education authority could send a comparatively 

 inexperienced teacher to visit some of the schools at which 

 successful classes are conducted and see their methods of 

 work, such a visit would amply repay its cost. 



