300 NATURE 
[May 23, 1912 
NOTES. 
Tue long-promised Government Bill to deal with 
the subject of the feeble-minded has appeared at last. 
A Royal Commission, which was appointed in rg904, 
reported in 1908, but the Government has taken four 
years before moving in what is admittedly an urgent 
matter. It would perhaps be ungrateful to inquire 
whether even this tardy appearance be due in part to 
the fact that a private Bill on the same subject was 
brought before the House of Commons on Friday 
last. The private Bill, which is due to the National 
Association for the Care of the Feeble-minded and 
the Eugenics Education Society jointly, gave rise to 
an interesting discussion, in which an all but general 
consensus of opinion was manifested in favour of the 
permanent care and control of those suffering from 
mental defect and unable to secure adequate protec- 
tion in their own homes. The private Bill was read 
a second time without a division, but whether it will 
be carried further remains to be seen. It is to be 
hoped that the Government Bill, which is broader in 
scope, and grants some, though not adequate, 
financial provision, may be pressed forward in such 
a way as to make the more limited private Bill un- 
necessary. Fear of expense would appear to be 
groundless, for it is certain that each year’s delay 
involves a prospective charge on the community for 
the support of hereditary defectives born therein far 
greater than the annual cost of the full scheme of 
the commissioners. From the wider points of view 
of the good of the race and the welfare of the exist- 
ing sufferers the case is overwhelming. 
In a speech at the anniversary dinner of the Royal 
Geographical Society on Monday, May 20, Lord 
Curzon of Kedleston, president of the society, referred 
to the cosmopolitan character of geographical science. 
It is, he said, the handmaiden of history, the sister 
science to economics and to politics, and surrounded 
by the frontiers of geology, zoology, chemistry, 
physics, astronomy, and other sciences, while the 
literature of travel is appreciated by all. It will be 
remembered that Colonel Close, in his address as 
president of the Geographical Section of the British 
Association last year, contended that geography, 
apart from cartography, cannot be considered as a 
science in itself, but only as a common meeting- 
place and popularising medium for other sciences. 
The fact is that geography is a branch of science 
when it is studied and developed by scientific methods. 
Lord Curzon has no sympathy with the dull and 
pedantic school geography of former days, which 
meant, in the main, lists of the names and popula- 
tions of great cities, the heights of mountains, the 
principal capes and promontories, number of square 
miles in a certain territory, and so on. More scien- 
tific methods of teaching geography are now followed, 
and the subject has justified the higher place it has 
gained as an educational factor, both in the school 
and outside. These are not the days to say that 
every branch of science must have its boundaries 
clearly defined. Astronomy long ago entered the 
domains of physics and chemistry, while these two 
sciences are scarcely distinguishable as separate 
NO. 2221, VOL. 89] 
departments of knowledge. So it is with biology, 
which becomes a branch of mathematics in biometric. 
So long 
studies and of chemistry in other aspects. 
as geography is concerned with the advancement of 
knowledge of the earth and its relations to the needs 
of man it may claim to have a field of inquiry in 
which valuable worl can be carried on for education 
and science. 
THE programme for the educational section of the 
International Congress. of Mathematicians. at Cam- 
bridge (August 22-28) is now arranged. As already 
announced, the International Commission on Mathe- 
matical Teaching will meet at the same time and 
place, and in addition to the proceedings of the com- 
mission there will be further educational papers in 
the didactic subsection of the congress. At the first 
general meeting of the congress, Prof. Klein, presi- 
dent of the commission, will give an account of the 
work of the commission. The question of prolong- 
ing the mandate of the commission until the next 
congress (four years) will be raised. The commission 
will then hold three meetings in common with the 
didactic subsection of the congress, namely :—first 
meeting, presentation of the reports of the national 
subcommissions; second meeting, intuition and ex- 
periment in mathematical teaching at secondary 
schools; third meeting, mathematics as needed in the 
teaching of physics. In addition, the following 
papers will be read before the didactic subsection :— 
(1) Prof. J. Perry, the teaching of practical mathe- 
matics to evening classes; (2) Prof. M. J. M. Hill, the 
teaching of the theory of proportion; (3) Dr. T. P. 
Nunn, the proper scope and method of instruc- 
tion in the calculus in schools; (4) Dr. A. N. White- 
head, the principles of mathematics in relation to 
elementary teaching (joint meeting of the didactic 
and philosophical subsections). Membership of the 
congress is secured by the payment of £1, which 
entitles the subscriber to attend the congress and to 
receive a copy of the Proceedings. The treasurer is 
Sins); Warmor, FR IS) iSteajohn?s College, Cam- 
bridge. 
Tue new building of the Royal Society of Medi- 
cine, in Wimpole Street, was visited by the King 
and Queen on Tuesday, May 21, and _ formally 
opened by his Majesty. In the course of a reply to 
an address presented by the society, the King 
said:—‘“It gives me great pleasure to open the fine 
building which will henceforth be the home of the 
society, and which will provide adequately for the 
increase in your membership and for the extension 
of your duties since a new and enlarged charter was 
granted to you by my father, King Edward: The 
importance of the society’s work is now universally 
appreciated, and it is a matter of satisfaction that 
the needs of the society have been generously pro- 
vided for, and that its varied functions can now be 
carried on unhampered by lack of space. The health 
and well-being of the community are safeguarded 
by the energies of the medical profession. We look 
to you to fight sickness and disease, and we claim 
from you an untiring vigilance in this contest: and 
unceasing efforts to find, by the investigation of the 
