134 



NA TURE 



[July 22, 1922 



pathology at the University of Birmingham. Mr. 

 W. W. C. Topley has been appointed to the chair 

 of bacteriology and to the directorship of the Public 

 Health Laboratory. Mr. Topley is at present 

 director of the Institute of Pathology and lecturer 

 in bacteriology and pathology at Charing Cross 

 Hospital, London. 



It is announced that Mr. R. M. Wilson, at present 

 principal of the East Anglian Institute of Agriculture, 

 Chelmsford, has been appointed principal of the 

 South-Eastern Agricultural College, Wye. 



The Empire Cotton Growing Corporation will 

 shortly appoint an assistant for cotton research in St. 

 Vincent, West Indies, whose duties will consist of 

 genetics research on the cotton plant. The salary- 

 offered is 600/.-700/., with free bachelor quarters. 

 Further particulars are obtainable from the Secretary 

 of the Corporation, Millbank House, Millbank, S.W.i. 

 The latest date for the receipt of applications for the 

 post is Thursday, August 10. 



A number of evening advanced courses in techno- 

 logy are being organised as usual for the coming 

 session by the University of Leeds. Students who 

 are under the age of twenty-two are required to pro- 

 duce evidence of adequate preparation for the courses 

 or to pass an entrance examination before they will 

 be admitted. Courses are held in civil, mechanical, 

 electrical, and gas engineering, coal mining, textile 

 industries, colour chemistry and dyeing, leather 

 industries, fuel, metallurgy and geology. Many of 

 the courses are specially suitable for those desirous 

 of undertaking research work. 



. Two Frecheville Research fellowships are being 

 offered by the Imperial College of Science and Techno- 

 logy, South Kensington, to aid in carrying out any 

 investigation or research connected with mining, 

 mining geology, metallurgy, or the technology of 

 oil, which, in the opinion of the Selection Committee, 

 is of sufficient use or promise. Each fellowship will 

 be of the annual value of 300/., tenable for one year, 

 with a possible renewal for a second year, and the 

 holder will be expected to devote his whole time to 

 the work of the fellowship. Further particulars may 

 be obtained from the secretary of the college, and 

 all applications must be lodged with him before 

 September 1, information being furnished at the same 

 time as to the qualifications of the applicants and the 

 nature of the proposed investigations. 



The president and council of the Royal Society 

 propose to create a Foulerton Research Professorship 

 and a Foulerton Research Studentship, the duties 

 respectively of each being " to conduct such original 

 researches in medicine or the contributory sciences 

 ... as shall be calculated to promote the discovery 

 of the causes of disease and the relief of human 

 suffering," and " to conduct researches in medicine 

 or the sciences under the supervision and control of 

 the managing committee." The annual value of the 

 professorship will be 1400/. and that of the student- 

 ship 700/. Members of either sex are eligible for 

 appointment. Applications must reach the Royal 

 Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, W.i, by, at 

 latest, October 31. 



The West Indian Agricultural College, which has 

 materialised as the result of the report of a committee 

 on the question, referred to in Nature of April 1, 

 1920, p. 153, will be opened in October next, in tem- 

 porary accommodation which has been acquired 



NO. 275 I, VOL. I IO] 



at St. Augustine, Trinidad. Sir Arthur Shipley, who 

 represents the University of Cambridge, is chairman, 

 and Sir David Prain, representing with Mr. E. R. 

 Darnley, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 

 deputy chairman of the governing body, on which 

 will be also representatives of the University of 

 Glasgow, the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and the 

 Imperial College of Science and Technology. The 

 College will aim at providing a three years' diploma 

 course in tropical agriculture for those desirous of 

 following the business of tropical planting, and a 

 shorter course for those unable to take the full 

 course ; there will also be facilities for research. 

 Sir Francis Watts will combine the duties of Principal 

 of the College and Commissioner of the Imperial 

 Department of Agriculture, which has been amalga- 

 mated with the College. The College has offices at 

 15 Seething Lane, London, E.C.3, and further details 

 of the courses can be obtained from the secretary, 

 Mr. A. Aspinall, at that address. 



Prof. Alexander Mair, writing in the Bulletin 

 of the Association of University Teachers, says — 

 " Research ... is the fashionable cant word of our 

 generation." He deplores " the fact that so many men 

 and women . . . are induced to spend one or two 

 important years in doing pedestrian work that could 

 equally well be performed by an intelligent mechanic 

 or clerk " owing to the fallacy that free creative 

 activity can be commanded by a mere fiat. A 

 similar warning is embodied in an article on Medical 

 Research in the report for 1920-21 of the president of 

 the Carnegie Foundation for the advancement of 

 teaching. " Every college and university," he says, 

 " covets the reputation of being a centre of research. 

 . . . The result of this striving is that the thing 

 which ought to be the greatest inspiration toward 

 good teaching has become only too often an excuse to 

 escape the primary duty of teaching." In Prof. 

 Mair's article reference is made to " an inquest into 

 the whole question " (of research by members of 

 university staffs) which, it seems, the Association of 

 University Teachers is undertaking. 



The retirement is announced, on the ground of 

 failing health, of Mr. Sidney H. Wells from the post 

 of Director-General of the Department of Technical 

 Education of the Egyptian Government. Mr. Wells 

 was appointed to that position in 1907 upon the 

 creation of the department by Lord Cromer, and 

 during his fifteen years' service has organised technical, 

 agricultural, commercial, and industrial education 

 in all branches. Generally speaking, schools of three 

 grades in each of the sections named, elementary, 

 intermediate, and higher, have been created, and 

 there are now nearly fifty different institutions at 

 work in the country extending from Alexandria to 

 Assouan. With the creation of the Ministry of 

 Agriculture, the direction of the agricultural schools 

 was transferred to that Ministry, and it is intended 

 to incorporate the Higher Colleges of Engineering 

 and Architecture, and of Commerce, with the proposed 

 new Government University of Cairo. For his 

 work during the war as Director of Civilian Employ- 

 ment for the Egyptian Expeditionary Force, Mr. 

 Wells was mentioned in Lord Allenby's dispatches 

 and in 1919 was awarded the C.B.E. He also holds 

 the insignia of Grand Officer of the Mejidieh Order, 

 and of the Order of the Nile conferred by the Khedive 

 Abbas and Sultan Hussein for his services to Egypt. 

 Mr. Wells will be remembered as the first Principal 

 of the Battersea Polytechnic, which position he held 

 from the building of the institute until his departure 

 for Egypt in 1907. 



