NA TURE 



[May 2 1, 1908 



June 9 there will be a discussion on trade and teclinical 

 scliools, and on tine evening of the same day the annual 

 dinner of the association will be held at Anderton's Hotel, 

 Fleet Street, E.C. All interested in technical education 

 are cordially invited to attend the meetings and discussions. 



We learn from the Pioneer Mail that the Government 

 of the Maharaja of Mysore is about to award four scholar- 

 ships — of which two will be for mining and metallurgy, 

 including electrometallurgy — of the value of 200/. each 

 per annum, for the year 1908, for study in some British 

 or other recognised university or approved technical in- 

 stitution. These scholarships will be open to all Indians 

 who have taken with credit a degree in arts, medicine, 

 or engineering in an Indian or other recognised university, 

 provided that when qualifications are otherwise equal pre- 

 ference shall be given to candidates who are natives of 

 Mysore or who have taken a degree from a Mysore college. 

 The selection of candidates will be made in August. From 

 the same source we notice that, of 157 students selected 

 in the past three years by the .Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Scientific and Industrial Education of Indians to 

 proceed to foreign countries, 100 have availed themselves 

 of the opportunity, while the fifteen returned students have 

 all found suitable employment. 



The second volume of the report of the U.S. Com- 

 missioner of Education for the year ending June 30, 1906, 

 is now available. It gives a very prominent place to 

 statistical information, designed to show the progress 

 which continues to be made in American secondary educa- 

 tion. School education in the States is divided according 

 to a well-devised scheme of studies into twelve grades, 

 and the first eight constitute what, in this country," would 

 be called elementary education, and the grades from nine 

 to twelve inclusive correspond to our secondary schools. 

 The number of American secondary-school pupils in both 

 })ublic and private institutions in 1890 was 367,000, or 

 about 5900 to the million of population ; in 1895 the 

 number had increased to 539,700, or 7900 to the million : 

 in 1900 the number was 719,200, or (jjoo to the million ; 

 while for the year 1906 the number aggregated 924,400, 

 or about 11,000 to the million of population, or more than 

 I per cent. The growth of public, as compared with 

 private, secondary schools has beer* remarkable. The 

 number of public schools, which in 1890 was 2526, had in 

 iqo6 grown to 8031, and they educated 87-66 per cent, 

 of the total number of secondary-school pupils. On the 

 other hand, the number of private secondary schools, which 

 increased up to 1895, has since that time steadilv decreased. 

 In iqo6 the number of private schools was 1529. Of the 

 public secondary schools of the country, there were forty 

 for boys only and twenty-nine for girls only, all the others 

 being co-educational. Of the private schools, 304 were 

 for boys only, 500 for girls only, and 725 co-educational. 



The annual report of the superintendent of education of 

 the public schools of Nova Scotia for the year ended 

 July 31, 1907, contains, with much other useful informa- 

 tion, reports on technical education by the director. Prof. 

 F. H. Sexton, and on the Nova Scotia College of Agri- 

 culture by its principal, Mr. Melville Gumming. On 

 ."^pril 25, 1907, an Act relating to technical education passed 

 the Nova Scotia Legislature, and led to Prof. Sexton's 

 appointment as director of technical education, with charge 

 of all the schools established under the Act. The schools 

 provided for are : — (i.) a technical college in the capital 

 city of Halifax, to provide professional training in mining, 

 in civil, electrical, metallurgical, and mechanical engineeV- 

 ing, and in industrial scientific research generally ; (ii.) local 

 technical schools to be established in various industrial 

 centres; (iii.) coal-mining and engineering schools in 

 colliery centres. The college is to be supported by the 

 Government solely, and by private benefactions if such 

 become available. The expenses of the coal-mining and 

 engineering schools are at present defrayed altogether by 

 the provincial treasury, and the local technical schools are 

 supported jointly by the locality and the central govern- 

 ment. The first step in organisation was to obtain in- 

 forrnation regarding the status of existing mining and 

 engineering schools, and the attitude of workmen, 

 employers, and local authorities towards the proposed local 



NO. 2012, VOL. 78] 



technical schools. The engineering schools seem to have 

 been conducted in such a manner that they fulfilled most 

 of the demands on them, and up to the end of the period 

 with which the report deals it was not considered necessary 

 to engage instructors to devote their whole time to teach- 

 ing. In respect of the local technical schools, the greatest 

 interest was found exhibited everywhere by wage-earners, 

 employers, and the general public. Trades unions were 

 found to be definitely opposed to pure trade schools ; the 

 unions fear that such schools will give an imperfect know- 

 ledge of the trades, produce a surplus of " hot-house 

 mechanics," as they designate them, who will tend to 

 decrease the demand and wages of skilled labour. It was 

 finally decided that the first schools to be established should 

 be evening technical schools to educate the men already 

 employed in the scientific principles underlying their trades. 

 The report on the College of Agriculture shows that the 

 number of students in 1907 reached 132, and that it is 

 expected the total will reach 200 during the present year. 



SOCIETIES AND ACADEMIES. 



London. 

 Royal Society, January 30. — "On the Generation of a 



Luminous Glow in an Exhausted Receiver moving in an 

 Electrostatic Field, and the Action of a Magnetic Field on 

 the Glow so Produced." By F. J. Jervis-Smith, F.R.S. 



.A glass bulb, exhausted as a Rontgen tube, was rotated 

 in an electrostatic field and also in a magnetic field. The 

 conditions of the experiment were varied in six ways.- 

 The static charge was either positive or negative. The 

 direction of rotation was reversible. The pole maintain- 

 ing the magnetic field was either S. or N. The relation- 

 ship existing between the different conditions will be best 

 understood by reference to the diagram, in wdiich D is 

 a charged disc, B the glow-bulb, S the magnet pole. The 

 axis XO of rotation of the glow-bulb B, the axis of 

 the electromagnet, and the stem of the inductor disc D, 

 are situated in the same plane, when the glow-bulb B 



rotates about the axis XO in a clock-hands' sense to art 

 eye looking along XO. The metal inductor D being 

 charged positively, it is filled with a luminous glow of a 

 bluish-green colour, but when the S. pole is placed near 

 the bulb the glow matter is deflected in the direction P/>, 

 and a bright patch of light is produced at G. The charge 

 on D can be reversed, also the direction of rotation and 

 the magnet pole. If while any two of these conditions are 

 kept the same the third is reversed, the direction of deflec- 

 tion of the glow is reversed. The glow-bulbs were 

 exhausted to the same degree of exhaustion as the Rontgen 

 tube by a leading maker of such tubes. The rays emitted 

 have a definite effect on a sensitive photographic plate, 

 giving shadow pictures. The glow-bulb was rotated about 

 twenty times per second ; it was found that the intensity 

 of the glow increased as the rotation increased. The 

 distance between the charged inductor and the glow-bulb 

 was varied from i cm. to 13 cm. The glow was apparent 

 at 13 cm. In most of the experiments the inductor was 

 charged to about 1200 volts. The diameter of the glow- 

 bulbs varied from 1.5 cm. to 5-0 cm. 



