December 9, 1922] 



NA TURE 



793 



of the Exchequer or the institution of the Ph.D. 

 degree. Outstanding interests such as these were 

 dealt with by conferences, ad hoc, summoned by the 

 Universities Bureau. At their quarterly meetings 

 the executive heads have considered a vast number 

 of matters of common interest, ranging from entrance 

 tests to regulations for higher degrees, from student 

 fees to salaries of members of staffs. After mutual 

 consultation they report the proceedings of the 

 committee to their respective councils and senates, 

 which alone have power to give expression to its 

 views, if they endorse them. When the salaries of 

 teachers, meagre before the war, were felt by even 

 the most enduring to be totally inadequate to meet 

 the increased cost of living, the Association of Uni- 

 versity Teachers was formed for the purpose, in 

 the main, of protecting the material interests of its 

 members. We gather from the address recently 

 delivered by its new president, Prof. J. W. McBain, 

 of the University of Bristol, that the Association 

 now contemplates a wider field of usefulness. It is 

 proposed to appoint sub-committees to prepare 

 reports on a variety of topics, to send these reports to 

 the local associations for discussion, and finally, 

 after the central council have hammered them into 

 shape, to place them on record as the opinion of 

 the Association for the benefit of the public both 

 within and without the universities. 



Dr. Samuel P. Capen, the able director for several 

 years past of the work of the American National 

 Council on Education, was installed last month as 

 Chancellor of the University of Buffalo. Dr. Capen, 

 who attended the Universities' Congress at Oxford in 

 July 1921, is well known as an authority on higher 

 education in America. In the course of his inaugural 

 address at Buffalo he dealt with some of the problems 

 of urgent national importance with which educa- 

 tional administrators in America are confronted. 

 Institutions of higher education of nearly every type 

 except agricultural colleges are, he says, overcrowded, 

 the pressure being most pronounced in the colleges 

 of arts and sciences, where the onrush of students has 

 threatened the efficiency of instruction. The increase 

 in secondary school enrolments throughout the 

 country indicates that the situation is bound to 

 become more acute. More disconcerting than the 

 increase in numbers in the colleges of arts and 

 sciences are a falling off in the standard of intellectual 

 vigour of their students, and a centrifugal tendency 

 driving the more energetic of them to courses with 

 such distinctly vocational aims as commerce, journal- 

 ism, home economics, and industrial chemistry. A 

 university, Dr. Capen says, is a place maintained at 

 great expense to foster the philosophic point of view 

 and stimulate constructive thinking, and its resources 

 should not be consumed by those who are incapable 

 of such things. It may be impracticable at present 

 to devise tests which would prevent their admission, 

 but it is relatively easy to identify them when they 

 have been for a little while in college and " if the 

 faculty can stand the strain " to eliminate them. As 

 early as possible in the college course there should be 

 provision of opportunities for independent study as 

 in the case of honours students in British universities 

 (whose work, by the way, is, Dr. Capen says, superior 

 in quality to that which any American college student 

 is required to perform), and none should be allowed 

 to graduate who have not " demonstrated capacity 

 for independent study and registered definite mastery 

 of some field of study." Thus he would have American 

 colleges adopt and apply generally to all candidates 

 for degrees the British universities' system of honours 

 schools. 



NO. 2771, VOL. I 10] 



Calendar of Industrial Pioneers. 



December 10, 1631. Sir Hugh Myddelton died. — 

 A successful London goldsmith and banker, Myddelton 

 projected and carried through the scheme for bringing 

 water to London from springs at Chadwell and 

 Amwell in Hertfordshire. The New River Works 

 were begun in 1609 and completed in 16 13, the 

 canal being 10 feet wide and more than 38 miles 

 long. There are memorials to Myddelton at Islington, 

 Holborn, and the Royal Exchange. 



December 10, 1896. Alfred Bernhard Nobel died. 

 — The founder of the five Nobel prizes, for which he 

 bequeathed a sum of 1,400,000/., Nobel was born 

 in Stockholm, October 21, 1833, worked for a time 

 in his father's torpedo works at St. Petersburg, and 

 after returning to Sweden took up the study of 

 explosives. Dynamite was patented by him in 

 18(17, in 1876 he patented blasting gelatine, and in 

 1888 lie produced ballistite. With his brothers he 

 established factories in various countries and took 

 a share in the exploitation of the Baku oil-fields. 



December n, 1906. Jacques Augustin Normand 

 died. — A descendant of a family of shipwrights who 

 constructed ships at Honfleur in the 17th century, 

 Normand became head of the well-known firm at 

 Havre in 1871, and as such had a great share in the 

 development of fast torpedo craft. In 1880 he built 

 eight torpedo boats for the French Government, 

 and in 1 895 constructed the Forban, which for a time 

 was the fastest vessel in the world. She was 144 

 feet long, and on trial on September 26, 1895, while 

 developing 3975 horse power, reached a speed of 

 31-029 knots. 



December 11, 1909. Ludwig Mond died. — Born 

 in Cassel, March 7, 1839, Mond studied chemistry 

 under Kolbe, Kirchhoff, and Bunsen, and first came 

 to England in 1862. He introduced into England 

 the ammonia-soda process of Solvay in 1873 with 

 Brunner, founded important works at Winnington 

 near Northwich, and about 1879 invented the Mond 

 producer gas plant and discovered a method of 

 manufacturing pure nickel. He was one of the 

 greatest industrial chemists of his time and a generous 

 benefactor of science. He founded the Davy- 

 Faraday Laboratory at the Royal Institution. 



December 12, 1849. Sir Marc Isambard Brunei 

 died. — Originally an officer in the French Navy, 

 Brunei fled from France during the Revolution, 

 and after a short time spent in America came to 

 England in 1799. Among his greatest achievements 

 were the invention of the famous block-making 

 machinery for Portsmouth Dockyard and the con- 

 struction during the years 1 825-1 843 of the Thames 

 Tunnel, considered at the time to be one of the sights 

 of the world. 



December 13, 1882. William Thomson Henley 

 died. — From a porter in the London Docks, Henley 

 rose to be one of the largest makers of telegraph 

 cable. Starting in business as an instrument maker 

 in 1838, he made apparatus for Wheatstone, exhibited 

 an electro-magnetic machine at the Exhibition of 

 1851, and altogether made some 14,000 miles of 

 submarine cable. 



December 16, 1816. Charles, third Earl Stanhope 

 died. — An ardent politician, and the brother-in-law 

 of Pitt, Stanhope was also known for his love of 

 the physical sciences and his inventive ingenuity. 

 He constructed calculating machines, patented a 

 process of stereotyping, introduced the Stanhope 

 press, and attempted to drive a ship by steam. 



E. C. S. 



