•March i i, 1909] 



NA TURE 



45 



by the State in providing educational facilities for 

 these leaders of men is a profitable investment. 



At present, the Government grant to meet expendi- 

 ture in respect of elementary education is about 

 Ji,50(i,0()g/. annually; and the sum paid in grants 

 for pupils in secondary schools in England and 

 Wales taking an approved course between the ages 

 of twelve and sixteen years is about 340,000/. In 

 addition, local authorities expend about 3,400,000/. 

 a year on education other than elementary. Of this 

 amount, about 700,000/. is expended on secondary 

 schools, 1,200,000/. on evening schools and institu- 

 tions for higher and technical education, and 260,000/. 

 upon day schools of similar scope. The State-aid 

 and rate-aid to the seven hundred secondary schools, 

 now accommodating about 113,000 pupils in England 

 and Wales, amounts, therefore, to rather m.ore than 

 one million pounds annually. 



This is a modest sum compared with expenditure 

 upon other objects, but little increase can be justified 

 for secondary schools until the demand for secondary 

 education is greater and more real than at present. 

 Free education from the primary school to the 

 university may be within the realm of practical 

 politics, but unless it is accompanied bv maintenance 

 grants equivalent to the wage-earning capacities of 

 poor students it will not satisfy the demands of the 

 Trade Unionists. Whether it is desirable to offer 

 this inducement to continued study to all children 

 may be doubted ; the nation should be concerned only 

 in providing adequate opportunities for the develop- 

 ment of children whose life-work is likely to promote 

 national welfare. The way should be open from the 

 primary school to the university, but a passport 

 should be demanded at each gate to show that the 

 student is capable of making the best use of the 

 new fields to which he is admitted. By this system, 

 and a judicious extension of the number of inter- 

 mediate and senior scholarships to provide for main- 

 tenance, any student of distinguished ability would 

 be able to command the highest educational training 

 this country can offer. R. A. G. 



A'.lD/f.U IXSTITUTES. 



nPIIE .March number of the Deutsche Rcviic^ is to 

 -*• contain the announcement by Prof. P. Lenard, 

 directoi; of the Physikalische Institut of the University 

 of Heidelberg, that a radium institute, of the 

 kind already in process of formation in Vienna, 

 London, and Berlin, is to be opened for work in 

 Heidelberg in the Easter of the present year. Owing 

 to the foresight and cooperation of the Senate of the 

 University and the Ministry of the Grand Duchy of 

 Baden, an endowment has been secured, and the 

 Heidelberg Institute will thus be the first of its kind 

 actually to come into existence and to commence 

 work. It is to be known as the Kadiologische 

 Institut. The term Radiology, which we. might also 

 with advantage accept, is used in Germany to connote 

 the newer branches of physics concerned with the 

 study of the invisible radiations, particularly, of 

 course, the kathode, Lenard, Rontgen, and Becquerel 

 rays, but comprising also the older known invisible 

 ultra-violet and infra-red light radiations, tlieir 

 methods of production, their relations to matter, in- 

 cluding radio-activity, phosphoresence, and photo- 

 electric action, and their practical applications, for 

 e.vample, in medicine. 



Prof. Lenard prefaces his announcement with the 

 remark that the new field of investigation has already 

 proved itself of such fruitfulness that it is quite 



1 Pulilished by Richard Fleischer, of the Deutsche Verlags .'\n»:.->lt. 



NO. 2054, VOL. 80] 



impossible at the present time to delimit its true 

 circumference. Every day arise new problems, for 

 example, in such fundamental subjects as the consti- 

 tution of matter, now assailable with hope of success. 

 The cultivation of this field demands special foster- 

 ing, not only on account of its immediate fruitfulness, 

 but also on account of the costliness of its prosecu- 

 tion — if only in the provision of those rare materials, 

 like radium, which it has brought into recognition — 

 and on account of the necessity for close cooperation 

 between the scientific workers and those engaged in 

 the practical applications of the new knowledge. 



The new institute at Heidelberg is to undertake 

 this work. It is to be under the same direction as 

 the Physikalische Institut of the L'niversity, and will 

 thus secure full benefit from the whole existing 

 resources of the institute. Provisionally 300 square 

 nietres area in the Frederichsbau will be' set aside for 

 it. Later it will be housed in a special wing of the new 

 buildings of the Physical Institute. The endowment 

 will ensure the furnishing of the institute with the 

 best equipment that can be secured, while the spring 

 sediments from the neighbouring State of Kreuznach, 

 to be worked up by the Government salt department, 

 will provide a source of radio-active material for 

 clinical and scientific investigation. The institute 

 will provide special instruction in the subjects it deals 

 with, while the clinical work will be undertaken by 

 Herren Czerny and Krehl in their own buildings, 

 but with close cooperation with the Physical Institute, 

 which will ensure that the work 'rests upon a 

 thoroughly sound scientific basis. 



The constitution and work of the Radium Institute to 

 be established in London are described in an official state- 

 ment published in the British Medical Journal of March 6. 

 From this statement we learn that the King has consented 

 to become the patron of the institute. A site has been 

 acquired in Riding House Street, Portland Place, upon 

 which the necessary building will be erected with as little 

 delay as possible. In general terms, it may be said that 

 the institute will be conducted upon the lines of the Radium 

 Institute in Paris. In addition to the superintendent, the 

 assistant to the superintendent, and the director of the 

 laboratory, there will be an honorary medical and surgical 

 staff (not yet appointed). The institute hopes to acquire 

 radium to the amount of 5 grams. 



The treatment carried out in the institute will be strictly 

 limited to treatment by radium or other radio-active sub- 

 stances. Treatment of cases by the Rontgen ravs, the 

 Finsen light, and by electrical currents will have no place 

 in the institute, as such measures of treatment are already 

 very amply provided for elsewhere. 



The building will be in two parts, with separate 

 entrances. One section will be devoted to necessitous 

 patients, and the other to the well-to-do. The former will 

 be treated free; the latter will be required to pay fees 

 on such a scale as the medical and surgical staff mav 

 determine. No patient, poor or well-to-do, will be treated 

 in the institute except upon the imprimatur of a qualified 

 medical man. 



Demonstrations in the use of radium will be given, and 

 medical practitioners can be advised as to the mode of 

 employment and as to the radio-activity of their own speci- 

 mens of radium. 



THE SUMMER SEASON TIME BILL. 

 'T'HE debate upon the Summer Season Time Bill, 

 * commonly known as the Daylight Saving Bill, 

 in the House of Commons on Friday last, was, for 

 the most part, .-=1 pitiful exhibition of the incom- 

 petence of politicians to understand any question in- 

 volving a knowledge of elementary science. Though 

 the proposals in the Bill would dislocate the entire 

 m.ichinery of time-reckoning, less than forty members 

 were present at the opening of the discussion ; and 



