268 



NA TURE 



[April 29, 1909 



On July 12, 190S, King Edward VII. and Queen Alexandra 

 visited Sheffield and opened the new University buildings. 

 On the day of the King's visit Mr. \Vm. Edgar Allen 

 gave lo.oooi. to the University on the sole condition that 

 it should be used for the erection of a building for the 

 University library. On Monday, April 26, to the great 

 satisfaction of the University authorities and of the people 

 of Sheffield and district, the Prince and Princess of Wales 

 opened the Edgar Allen Library. At a special Congrega- 

 tion honorary degrees of Litt.D. were conferred on His 

 Royal Highness and on Mr. Wm. Edgar Allen, the donor 

 of the library. During the ceremony the Chancellor, the 

 Duke of Norfolk, announced that Mr. Allen had that 

 morning given donations of 5000?. to the Royal Infirmary 

 and 500oi. to the Royal Hospital, on condition that a 

 ward or wing in each should be called after the Prince 

 and Princess respectively, a condition their Royal High- 

 nesses were pleased to accept. The educational value of 

 these fresh gifts was aptty referred to by the Chancellor, 

 who pronounced them " a very thoughtful work in connec- 

 tion with this University, because it is undoubtedly a fact 

 that the medical students of this University derive great 

 advantages from what they can learn and see at the 

 great hospitals of this city." The Prince, in the course 

 of an interesting speech, said ; — " The great development 

 of the university movement is a remarkable feature in 

 the march of education during the latter part of the nine- 

 teenth century. Our important industrial centres recognise 

 that there are problems to be solved differing widelv from 

 those dealt with in the more ancient universities. Sheffield 

 was quick to see the necessity of adapting herself to the 

 industrial needs of the people, and to realise that scientific 

 and technical knowledge is indispensable to success in the 

 strenuous commercial struggle amonc the nations of the 

 west. Thanks to the liberality of Mr. Mark Firth, the 

 college which bore his name was founded in 1879, and 

 incorporated twenty-six years later with those other 

 institutions which constitute the University of Sheffield, 

 including among them schools of engineering and metal- 

 lurgy which are famous throughout the land. ..." 



The Lord Mayor will preside at a meeting, to be held 

 at the Mansion House as we go to press, in support of 

 the National League for Physical Education and Improve- 

 ment. The speakers will include the Bishop of Ripon, 

 the Duke of Argyll (probably). Lord Halsbury, Lord Ash- 

 bourne, Sir Henry Craik, M.P., and others. The follow- 

 ing report, prepared by a strong and representative com- 

 mittee organised by the league, will be presented and dis- 

 cussed : — (i) That physical education should be compulsory 

 in all schools, subject to the conditions of sections (2) 

 Sid (3)- (2) That medical inspection and report should be 

 compulsory as a preliminary to pedagogical gymnastics 

 and at intervals thereafter ; the report to make special 

 reference to the conditions of eyes, ears, teeth, lungs, and 

 heart, and to be drawn up on an authorised form to be 

 supplied to the medical officer. A special report should 

 also be made on the return of a pupil after severe illness. 

 That a local education authority does not adequately carry 

 out its duties in regard to medical inspection unless pro- 

 vision is made for this. (3) That there should be regular 

 pedagogical gymnastics at the schools, the number of 

 lessons, the duration of each, and the nature of the 

 exercises to be adapted to the age and physical condition 

 of the child, the time so allotted not to curtail the play 

 hours, games being an important part of physical educa- 

 tion. The committee consider that, when possible, this 

 instruction should be carried out daily, though they 

 recognise that for the present this may be impossible, and 

 that three days a week should be the minimum. They 

 consider that, as far as possible, exercises not demanding 

 apparatus should be carried out in the open air. (4) That 

 in all secondary and intermediate schools specially trained 

 gymnastic specialists should be appointed ; in elementary 

 schools, where the physical education is necessarily carried 

 out by ordinary school teachers, such teachers should 

 possess a qualification in physical training, (s) The studies 

 of gymnastic specialists should be carried out on the 

 general lines of the Swedish system, with such modifica- 

 tions as are necessitated by the different conditions of 

 school life in this country ; recognition to be made of 

 NO. 2061, VOL. 80] 



various grades of qualifications, and corresponding differ- 

 ences in the course of study required. (6) The studies of 

 the gymnastic specialist should embrace anatomy, physio- 

 logy, hygiene, mechanics, and pedagogics. (7) For the 

 present, certificates of efficiency as teachers will have to 

 be granted or approved by a central body, whether or not 

 in the future these powers can be delegated to universities 

 or other local bodies. (8) The committee have considered 

 the question of a central institute, and are of opinion that, 

 although such an institute is highly desirable, they are not 

 in a position at present to give definite recommendations 

 'n regard to its formation. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 

 London. 

 Royal Society, April 22.— Sir Arch'bild Geikie, K.C.B., 



president, in the chair. — " Dynamic " osmotic pressures : 

 the Earl of Berkeley and E. G. J. Hartley.— (i) The 



theory of ancestral contributions in heredity ; (2) the 

 ancestral gametic correlations of a Mendelian population 

 mating at random: Prof. Karl Pearson. The puipose of 

 these two papers is to place in a somewhat clearer light 

 the relationship of the biometric to the Mendelian stand- 

 point. The law of ancestral heredity, as stated by the 

 present writer in a paper published many years ago in 

 the Proc. Roy. Soc, involved the following three points : — 

 (a) the linearity of the regression of offspring on any 

 ancestor ; (b) the diminution of the ancestral correlations 

 in a geometrical progression ; and (c) the determination 

 of the probable character of the offspring, when the mating 

 was at random, by the multiple regression formula. It 

 was shown, in a memoir of 1896, that when the ancestral 

 correlations were of the type p, p^, p' . . . then the 

 character of the offspring depended only on the characters 

 of the two parents, and ancestry need not be considered. 

 In a memoir in vol. cciii. of the Phil. Trans, it was 

 shown later that (a) and (b) held for a generalised Men- 

 delian. population, for the soinalic characters, but thai the 

 somatic correlations were not of the type p, p-, p' . . . 

 and accordingly that ancestry, in the biometrician's 

 sense, did matter even in a population following the 

 simplest Mendelian formula, providing the mating was at 

 random. A recent paper in the Proc. Roy. Soc. might be 

 interpreted as meaning that the law of ancestral heredity 

 did not apply to a Mendelian population. In the first of 

 the above papers the writer indicates how, in a population 

 originally consisting of p dominants, 5 recessives, and q 

 hybrids, mating at random, the percentage of the number 

 of dominants in the offspring increases with the number 

 of dominants in the grandparentage, and this is true in 

 the case of any grade of ancestors, whatever be p, q, and s. 

 In the second paper the writer turns from the somatic to 

 the gametic correlations, which were not discussed in the 

 earlier memoirs, and shows that the gametic correlations 

 form a series of the character p, p^, p' . . . ; in other 

 words, a knowledge of the gametic character of the 

 parents makes a knowledge of the gametic character of 

 the ancestry unnecessary. Apart from symbols, this must 

 be a truism, because the offspring arises solely from the 

 gametes of the parents ; but a point of some interest is 

 that the Mendelian gametic correlations, whatever be the 

 mixture of protogenic, allogenic, and heterogenic elements 

 in the freely mating population, take the same values, 

 i.e. 0-5, 0-25, 0-125, &c., diminishing one-half with each 

 ancestral grade. These gametic correlations are much 

 nearer to the values obtained by biometric investigations 

 for the somatic correlations, the theoretical Mendelian 

 somatic correlations being considerably too small. It 

 would thus appear that the Mendelian gametic correlations 

 accurately obey the fundamental conceptions of the law of 

 ancestral heredity, and the only real outstanding antinomy 

 lies in the principle of absolute dominance. The correla- 

 tions found biomotrically suggest that there is a closer 

 relation between the gametic and somatic constitution^at 

 least for certain characters in the species investigated — 

 than is represented by the firs' Mendelian principle of 

 absolute dominance. — The intracranial vascular system of 

 Sphenodon : Prof. A. Dendy. This memoir contains a 

 detailed description, with illustrations, of the intracranial 



