March II, 1909] 



NATURE 



Do 



be created against British manufacturers or against 

 endeavours to establish new industries in this country. 

 Now " unfair prejudice " in the Act does not mean 

 successful competition, a sense in which the word is some- 

 limes used. " Unfair prejudice " is a novel term, but 

 " unfair competition " is now a recognised head of law 

 in all civilised countries, though the words are less familiar 

 here tlian in ."America. 



" 1 hat, so far as I know, is the history of the new pro- 

 visions of the Patents .Act ot 1907. If you read Section 24, 

 the operative section, which has really been the text of 

 these few remarks, together with Section 38, you will see 

 that the object of the .\ct is not the protection of manu- 

 facturers against rival producers as producers, but the pro- 

 tection of the public, both producers and consumers, 

 against the evils of excessive monopoly. 



" I should like to say one word on the decline of the 

 study of German. For about thirty years we have been 

 in danger of attaching a slightly exaggerated value to 

 German as compared with other modern languages. Now, 

 it appears, there is a reaction in favour of French. So 

 far as the study of French is concerned, I have not a 

 word to say against it, but that the study of German 

 should be declining seems to me, as to the framers of the 

 report — and to my learned friend, if I may still call him 

 so, Mr. Haldane — a matter of serious national importance. 

 I can think of only two reasons why people should prefer 

 French to German. They may suppose French to be 

 easier, or they may suppose it to be more useful. .As to 

 being easier — and I must say it dogmatically, because 

 there is no time to give reasons — having given much time 

 to the study of both, I believe French is really the harder 

 language to learn well. .As to being more useful, French 

 is certainly very useful indeed. Taking literature and 

 business all round, perhaps one may say that French is 

 more useful for the literary study of our own language 

 and the history of our own civilisation, but when you 

 come to business — and therein I include what is being done 

 abroad in science and the application of science to industry 

 — German is quite as important as French. Finally, it is 

 becoming more and more indispensable to have a know- 

 ledge of foreign languages for any branch of life what- 

 ever." 



FORTHCOMIXG BOOKS OF SCIENCE. 



Agriculture. 

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 and Lnglish, illustrated. 



.Anthropology. 

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 Treatise on Certain .Ancient Forms of .Superstition and 

 Society, Prof. J. G. Frazer, 3 vols. The O.xford University 

 Press. — Bushman Paintings, reproduced from tracings 

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 translated, with an introduction and notes, bv Miss 

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 F.R.S. Swan Sonnenschein and Co., Ltd. — Bushman 

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Biology. 

 /I. and C. Blacl:. — .A Treatise on Zoologv, edited bv Sir 

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 NO. 2054, ^'OL. 80] 



illustrated. The Cambridge University Press. — Trees, the 

 late Prof. H.. Marshall Ward, F.R.S. ^ vol. v., Form and 

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 Prof. Bateson (on Heredity and Variation in Modern 

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 Darwin (on The Genesis of Double Stars), Mr.Wheatman 

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 Dent's "Open-air" Nature Books, edited bv W. . P. 

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 Duckworth and Co. — The Scientific Feeding of .Animals, 

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 Dr. J. W. Tenkinson, illustrated. Kegan Pavl and Co.. 

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