May 23, 1912] 
NATURE 311 
students who have attended appropriate courses ol 
instruction for at least two sessions. The student- 
ships cover all ordinary tuition fees, and will be 
awarded solely on consideration of the past records of 
the candidates, the recommendations of their teachers, 
the course of study they intend to follow, and gener- 
ally upon their fitness for advanced study in science 
applied to industry. In special cases the free places 
may be extended to two or more years. Application 
forms may be obtained from the Education Officer, 
L.C.C. Education Offices, Victoria Embankment, 
London, W.C., and must be returned not later than 
Saturday, May 25. 
Tue latest number of the Journal of the Royal 
Agricultural Society of England contains an_ article 
on rural education in our village schools, by Mr. 
K. J. J. Mackenzie, of the School of Agriculture, 
Cambridge. It discusses an important question in an 
interesting manner. Some of our practical agricul- 
turists, the article points out, hold that the ‘‘ atmo- 
sphere ” of the schoolrooms rather stimulates a desire 
on the part of our country lads to become messenger- 
boys, shop assistants, or junior clerks, and that the 
training they there receive is much more likely to 
make them successful in such avocations than to help 
them on to become good cowmen, waggoners, shep- 
herds, or skilled labourers. To arrive at some con- 
clusion as to what improvements the agricultural 
employers of labour desire, Mr. Mackenzie circulated 
a series of questions, to which he invited replies. His 
paper summarises the expressions of opinion received, 
but on the whole it cannot be said that the answers 
are very helpful or unanimous. The bulk of the 
suggestions seem to be in the direction of introducing 
definite instruction in rural subjects, with the view of 
interesting and instructing the children in the work 
they will do if they remain in the country. Mr. 
Mackenzie is right when he urges that what is 
wanted, and what is becoming more imperative every 
day, is true education which trains the pupil’s in- 
telligence to the best advantage. 
Tue new Harrison-Hughes Engineering Labora- 
ties at Liverpool University were opened on May 18 
by Lord Haldane. The laboratories are the outcome 
of a gift of some 40,0001. by Mr. T. F. Harrison, 
Mr. J. W. Hughes, and Mr. Heath Harrison, of the 
Harrison line of steamships. During the course of 
an address, Lord Haldane said it is difficult to under- 
rate the importance of a movement such as that for 
the development of the engineering side of Liverpool 
University or the value of such gifts as those which 
have made the new laboratories possible. It is not 
merely the bigness of the equipment with which the 
new laboratories are furnished. The chance is given 
to the student of getting that expansion of mind 
which only a university training can give in another 
branch of applied learning and on a scale which 
raises its level to the best that can be attained. The 
functions of a university are quite different from the 
functions of an elementary or even a _ secondary 
school. The teacher in an elementary school delivers 
certain facts and certain principles to a pupil too 
young to question them and not expected to inquire 
into their scope and truth. The mind of the pupil 
is receptive; he has started learning. But when we 
come to the university, professor and student are 
alike in the unknown. They are on a voyage of dis- 
covery, in which the professor is more equipped and 
more thoroughly experienced in the difficult road 
along which both are advancing in quest of new 
learning. It is a voyage of discovery which the 
student and the professor are taking in common, 
and unless the professor is a man of capacity who 
can stimulate and develop the imagination of the 
NOV2221, VOL. 89] 
| 
| general theory of colloidal solutions. 
student and infuse in him the spirit of research and 
develop a new atmosphere, the work will fail. 
Later Lord Haldane went on to say Liverpool Uni- 
versity has been developing year by year in a fashion 
which shows that the great and wealthy citizens 
appreciate what the public life of their city requires, 
what part the University may play, and how it is 
their privilege, as well as their pleasure, to make 
additions which mark a further stage in the life of 
the city as a whole. It is a very great pleasure to 
see the University growing and making itself more 
and more worthy of the great city of Liverpool. 
. SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 
( Lonpon. 
Royal Society, May 16.—Sir Archibald Geikie, 
K.C.B., president, in the chair.—W. B. Hardy: The 
The physical 
properties of colloidal solutions prove them to be 
heterogeneous fluids. If the colloid particles are 
regarded as a stage in the appearance of a second fluid 
phase the variations of the energy of the particles with 
the radius are of predominant importance. If we 
could assume, for instance, that the tension of the 
interface varied with the radius as the tension of a 
free film of fluid was found to vary with the thickness 
of the film by Renold and Riicker, globules of certain 
dimensions would alone be stable. It is pointed out, 
however, that at present there is no adequate basis in 
experiment or theory for regarding the peculiarities 
of soap films, themselves a colloidal form of matter, 
as the property of films or minute spheres of matter 
in general.—W. B. Hardy: The tension of composite 
fluid surfaces and the mechanical stability of films of 
fluid. In order to gain further information as to the 
variations of surface energy with variations in the 
thickness of a film, the tension and mechanical 
stability of the surface of water on which a known 
impurity was allowed to spread has been investigated. 
It was found that the effect of the impurity depended 
upon its chemical nature. Substances of great 
chemical stability, such as the higher paraffins, refuse 
to spread at all, and only slightly lower the tension of 
water. Esters—such as glycerides—produce a great 
fall of tension, and an exceedingly thin film of the order 
of 2 pm thick suffices. It is suggested that the great 
activity of esters is due to their being partly decom- 
posed at the interface with the production of a contact 
difference of potential between the film and the water. 
—W. B. Hardy: The Formation of a heat-reversible 
gel. In the course of his study of the cyclo-pentanes, 
Dr. Ruhemann has synthesised a substance which 
forms gels with apparently any solvent (alcohol, ether, 
carbon tetrachloride, carbon bisulphide, aldehyde, 
glacial acetic acid, &c.). A remarkable feature is that 
gelation occurs as readily in associating as in non- 
associating solvents. The gels have a peculiar struc- 
ture owing to the fact that gelation starts from nuclei 
and only gradually involves the whole mass.—H. E. 
Armstrong, E. F. Armstrong, and E. Horton: Studies 
on enzyme action. XVI.—The enzymes of emulsin 
(II): Prunase, the correlate of prunasin. Evidence 
has been adduced in previous studies of the series that 
the diglucoside amygdalin is resolved into glucose, 
benzaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide by two distinct 
enzymes present in the emulsin prepared from the 
almond fruit, one (amygdalase) serving to resolve it 
into glucose and 8-mandelonitrile glucoside or 
prunasin, the other to convert this latter compound 
into glucose, benzaldehyde, &c. Amygdalase is known 
to occur in certain yeasts unaccompanied by the 
second enzyme. It is now shown that the second 
enzyme occurs in the leaf of the almond and of other 
species of Prunus from which prunasin, but not amyg- 
