September 12, 1907] 



NATURE 



507 



evolution. A year of chemistry and physics might be 

 interpolated before physiology. With older and cleverer 

 pupils pure nature-study methods become insuflicient. As 

 the mind matures it must have more solid matter to 

 digest. The theory of evolution was beyond the grasp of 

 anv but the best class. Prof. Hickson agreed that the 

 ordinary course of biology was unsuitable for schools, but 

 possibly best for the teachers. Prof. Marcus Hartog 

 advocated accurate detailed descriptive and systematic 

 work in botany as the remedy for a certain fluffiness of 

 observation and description in nature-study. 



The report on curricula deals in the first instance with 

 boys' schools. The girls' schools had their turn when 

 Prof. H. E. Armstrong addressed the section on The 

 Need of a Scientific Basis io Girls' Education from a 

 Domestic Point of View. Women should cease from 

 competing with men to the neglect of their own interests 

 and natural duties. .'\ scheme of scientific education for 

 girls might radiate from the household. Instead of chalk 

 and salt, the common materials of the household, flour, 

 starch, coal, meat, sugar, &c., might be used as starting 

 points for a girl's study of science. The science of bread- 

 making would lead to a general cooperation of all studies 

 helpful to that end. The committee of Section L would 

 like Prof. Armstrong's paper to have been published in 

 full. It was a powerful enforcement of ideas advocated 

 by Prof. Smithells in York. 



The remaining hours were devoted to a discussion on 

 Types of Specialised Teaching. Mr. J. H. Hawthorn, of 

 Leicester, spoke on the teaching and the teacher in even- 

 ing technical schools. The type of evening student has 

 been changing, there are fewer adult workmen, and the 

 average age is lower than ten years ago. No student 

 should take a trade class until he has laid a foundation 

 of pure science. Good results were obtained by a science 

 teacher with a competent artisan demonstrator. The 

 teacher keeps abreast of the trade when he is known to 

 local factory owners, appreciated by them, and encouraged 

 to visit factories. Mr. C. T. Millis, of the Borough 

 Polytechnic spoke on problems of trade education con- 

 sidered in relation to our school system. Reforms are 

 needed in our elementary-school education to make it an 

 efl'ective preparation for the battle of life, especially for 

 those children who will take up industrial work. Too 

 much attention has hitherto been given to those going 

 into clerical occupations. The types of schools required 

 are specialised trade schools for boys and girls of fourteen 

 to sixteen years of age teaching definite trades, and also 

 preparatory trade schools teaching practical mathematics, 

 drawing, and science. The course must be planned to fit 

 the elementary school at one end, and also to fit the 

 system of apprenticeship followed in each trade. The 

 labour market must be watched to guard against mis- 

 taken specialisation. The teacher of trades must have 

 had trade exf)erience in the factory. Cooperation of 

 parents, teachers, employers, and trade-union leaders was 

 necessary. Mrs. J. Ramsay Macdonald described the 

 day trade schools for girls in greater detail. Women's 

 work is double, wage-earning in factory and responsibility 

 at home. To look upon the former as unimportant is 

 disastrous to women wage-earners. There are now day 

 classes in waistcoat-making, dressmaking, corset-making, 

 and ladies' tailoring. The pupils mostly hold scholarships 

 with maintenance grants. Six half-days are devoted to 

 trade teaching, four half-days to general instruction. The 

 trade teachers have come straight from good positions in 

 the workroom. The pupils' development, not customers' 

 convenience, is the first consideration. 



An excellent paper on technical training of the rank and 

 file, by Mr. J. C. Legge, of Liverpool, was in reserve, 

 but under pressure of time and in his regretted absence 

 it was distributed in abstract and taken as read. 



It was most gratifying to have so good a discussion on 

 these matters of technical and industrial training, which 

 have been a special interest to the president. Sir Philip 

 Magnus. Although not referred to in Section L, no 

 account of technical education at the British Association 

 would be complete without mention of Prof. S. P. Thomp- 

 son's suggestions in Section G for the abolition of premium 

 apprenticeship, and the opening of the best opportunities 

 in engineering works to merit and not to wealth. From 



Section D we cull another pregnant idea. The little pro- 

 cession of blue-eyed and brown-eyed school children 

 brought by Mr. Hurst from Burbage inevitably suggests 

 the possibility of our pupils having Mendelian minds as 

 well as Mendelian eyes. 



The brief interim report on the conditions of health 

 essential to the carrying on of the work of instruction in 

 schools, presented by Sir Edward Brabrook, may seem 

 inadequate to represent the interest of the association in 

 such matters. But papers on school hygiene were de- 

 liberately avoided this year as the most effective method! 

 of supporting the simultaneous congress in London. 



Two exhibitions were organised, one an exhibition of 

 work representing practical and observational studies 

 collected from the Leicester Council Schools by Mr. 

 Charles Bird. The exhibition of school-science apparatus 

 collected from several important schools by Mr. R. E. 

 Thwaites was conveniently adjacent to the section room. 



H. R. 



LOCAL SOCIETIES AT THE BRITISH 

 ASSOCIATION. 

 "T^HE number of delegates from the local scientific 

 societies which are in correspondence with the 

 British Association was exceptionally large at the con- 

 ference held during the Leicester meeting. Mr. H. J. 

 Mackinder opened the session, in the council chamber of 

 the municipal buildings, by an address on the advance- 

 ment of geographical science by local scientific societies. 

 He pointed out that in France there are about twenty 

 local societies devoted to geographical study, each taking 

 a region nearly corresponding with one of the old 

 provinces, whilst in Germany there are many societies 

 working specially for the furtherance of local geography. 

 In this country each provincial scientific society should 

 seek to correlate, from a geographical point of view, all 

 the facts obtained by specialists in its own locality, taking 

 as a basis a natural area rather than a county boundary. 

 From such correlation, if undertaken by a person of special 

 training, deductions could be drawn which would be of 

 great value to specialists in the future. Until systematic 

 work of this kind is accomplished on uniform principles 

 throughout the country, no complete geographical concep- 

 tion of our land is possible. Captain Dubois Phillips, re- 

 piesenting the Liverpool Geographical Society, referred to 

 the stimulus which should be given to the rational study 

 of geography by local societies through the influence of 

 the British Association ; and Dr. H. R. Mill bore testi- 

 mony to the inspiriting character of the discourse, but 

 feared that the complete realisation of Mr. Mackinder 's 

 scheme must be far distant. 



At last vear's conference of delegates it was suggested 

 that the British .^ssociation should be asked to appoint 

 a committee to organise a general photographic survey of 

 the country, county by county. The suggestion was care- 

 fully considered by the Corresponding Societies Com- 

 mittee, but it was felt that the scheme was too vast to 

 be taken up by the British .Association. At the same 

 time, it was considered that some section of the suggested 

 work, such as archseology, might perhaps be advantage- 

 ously undertaken. A discussion was therefore initiated by 

 the Rev. R. Ashington BuUen, who read a paper at the 

 Leicester conference on the advisability of appointing a 

 committee for the photographic survey of ancient re- 

 mains in the British Islands. The anthropological section 

 held, however, that such work might "be fairly undertaken 

 by the committee which already exists for the coUection 

 and registration of' anthropological photographs. As the 

 result of much discus.';ion the following resolutions, on the 

 motion of Mr. W. Jerome Harrison, of Birmingham, were 

 sent up tb the Committee of Recommendations and 

 ultimately referred to the Council': — That it is advisable 

 to obtain information as to the present state of things 

 in Britain, in connection with photo-survey work ; to 

 publish instructions, or give advice, for the execution of 

 a scientific photographic survey ; and to endeavour to 

 found or promote a photo-record of the town and district 

 in which the British .Association holds its annual meetings. 



.At the second meeting, presided over by the Rev. J. O. 

 Bevan, the local societies were urged to give greater 



NO. 1976, VOL. 76] 



