September 24, 190S] 



NA rURE 



given free meals, and already there are demands that they 

 shall be clothed at the expense of the ratepayers, and that 

 the parents shall even be paid for providing them with 

 lodging. It is not impossible that before long these 

 demands will be conceded by either party in the State. 

 The heavy additional expense incurred in this policy falls 

 upon the middle-class ratepayers and taxpayers, who have 

 to feed, educate, and clothe their own children at their 

 own expense. It may be said that they can get free 

 education for their children by sending them to the State 

 schools ; but this is to level down instead of to level up ; 

 for if thev do so, they will be lowering the general morale 

 of their own class, the most priceless asset of the nation. 

 The heavy burden of taxation entailed by this policy, fall- 

 ing as it does with special weight on the middle classes, 

 renders it more dilTicult each year for the young men 

 and the young women in that class to marry before thirty, 

 for they naturally shrint: from the expense of bringing 

 up large or even moderate-sized families. We need not 

 then wonder at the falling-off in the rate of increase of 

 the middle classes. Our legislators are bad stockmasters, 

 for they are selecting to continue the race the most unfit 

 physically and morally, whilst they discourage more and 

 more the increase of what we have proved to be the out- 

 come of a long process of natural selection. The present 

 policy therefore tends to reduce that which in all ages 

 has been the mainstay of every State, the middle class. 

 The yeomen of England, the free burghers of Germany 

 and of Italy, formed the best element in the Middle Ages. 

 So was it also with the great republics of the ancient 

 world. .Aristotle, in more than one passage, has pointed 

 out that the middle class, that which stands between 

 the " excessively wealthy " and the " very poor," between 

 the " millionaire " and the " wastrel,"' are the mainstay 

 of every State, and he shows that, where the middle class 

 has been crushed out by the millionaire or the mob, ruin 

 has inevitably overtaken the State. Indeed, it is clear 

 that the chief defect in the Greek democracies was the 

 smallness and weakness of the middle class, whilst it is 

 notorious that Rome prospered only so long as the middle- 

 class citizens flourished. Her downfall came when they 

 were extinguished bv the great capitalists, who made 

 common cause with the masses against them. The latter 

 had no patriotism, were incapable of bearing arms, and 

 had no aspirations beyond free meals and popular enter- 

 tainments at the expense of the State. 



It is of great scientific interest to discover how the 

 short-skulled peoples of .Asia and Europe became differ- 

 entiated from their long-skulled congeners : it is of great 

 practical importance to applv to the administration of our 

 great dependencies and colonies the lessons taught by 

 anthropology: but it is infinitely more important to main- 

 tain a vigorous stock of citizens for the kingdom and the 

 empire. Questions of the origin of races are. after all, 

 only academic ; but the other two, more especially the last, 

 are intimately bound up with the life of the nation. If 

 the present policy of our legislators is adhered to, the 

 moral and the physical standard of the British citizen will 

 steadily deteriorate, for the ponulation will gradually come 

 to consist of the posterity of those who are themselves 

 sprung from many gener.ations of the most unfit. Should 

 this unfortunately come to pass, it will be the result of 

 human pride refusing to applv to the human race the laws 

 which inexorablv regulate all Nature. 



UNIVERSITY AND EDUCATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 



St. Andrews. — Dr. Hugh Marshall has been appointed 

 successor to Prof. James Walker, F.R.S., in the chair of 

 chemistry in University College, Dundee, and Dr. Percy 

 J. Herring has been appointed to the Chandos chair of 

 physiology in the United College, St. Andrews, in the room 

 of 'the late Prof. Pettigrew, F.R.S. 



Mr. T. J. Rees has been appointed superintendent of 

 education for the borough of Swansea. 



NO. 2030, VOL. 78] 



The directorship of the research hospital of the Rocke- 

 feller Institute of New York City has been accepted by 

 Prof. Rufus 1. Cole, of the Johns Hopkins University. 



Mr. J. A. GiLRUTH, chief veterinarian and Government 

 bacteriologist of New Zealand, has been appointed director 

 of the National Veterinary College and Research Institute 

 now being established by the Government of Victoria, 

 Australia. 



A COURSE of public lectures on hygiene and public health 

 has been arranged (in cooperation with the State Depart- 

 ment of Health) for delivery at Cornell University. The 

 introductory lecture will be given on October 8 by Presi- 

 dent Schurman. 



The Times reports that Prof. Borgman has resigned 

 the rectorship of St. Petersburg University as a protest 

 against the policy of the Minister of Education ; it also 

 says that the Council of Ministers has empowered the 

 Minister of Public Instruction to forbid women to attend 

 university lectures in future, but to permit those to 

 complete their studies at universities who have already 

 received permission, and whose transfer to higher educa- 

 tional institutions for women is impossible. 



The Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, after an 

 existence of sixty-three years, has been re-organised, 

 that its sphere of activity 'and usefulness may be greatly 

 widened, and that it may no longer be handicapped 

 by non-eligibility to receive grants from public monies. 

 Taking advantage of the enlarged powers now conferred 

 upon it, the college proposes to advance the cause of 

 agriculture in general, and the agricultural interests of the 

 west of England in particular, by actively engaging in 

 the following kinds of work ;— (i') scientific research in 

 agricultural subjects ; (2) cooperation with the University 

 of Bristol (bv w'hich it will, no doubt, be fully recognised) 

 in the establishment of degree courses and degrees in 

 agriculture and forestry ; (3) continuance of the important 

 work of training landowners, estate agents, and colonists ; 

 (4) training county scholars in agriculture ; (5) continuing 

 and extending the system of short courses for sons of 

 tenant farmers ; (6) establishing classes in subjects of rural 

 education for the benefit of teachers ; (7) cooperation with 

 county councils in their instructional and experimental 

 work ; (8) acting as a bureau of information for the benefit 

 of west of England agriculturists. 



The new session of the Birlibeck College, London, will 

 be opened on September 28 with an address by Dr. Albert 

 Griffiths. The new calendar, which is now available, 

 shows that the college provides courses of day and evening 

 instruction for degrees in arts, science, laws, and economics 

 in the University of London, in addition to other important 

 educational work. Twenty-eight members of the large 

 staff are recognised teachers of the University of London. 

 The work of the college has developed so greatly in recent 

 years that there is pressing need for increased space. In 

 some departments the stage has been reached where 

 students have to be refused, and the usefulness of the 

 college is curtailed by its limited accommodation. ^ There 

 is, in fact, urgent need for more spacious college buildings. 

 We comriiend this calendar to intending students who 

 live within access of the college as being likely to provide 

 information of the kind they seek. The calendar of the 

 Bradford Technical College for i9o8-<), issued by^ the 

 education committee of the city, has also been received. 

 It not only provides full information of the comprehensive 

 day and evening courses in technology provided at the 

 Technical College, but also of an efficient department for 

 external examination work, such as that in connection 

 with the Board of Education and the Pharmaceutical 

 Society. The volume concludes with particulars of the 

 evening continuation schools and the branch technical and 

 commercial schools provided throughout the city. 



From time to time during the past six months hand- 

 some bequests to assist the development of higher educa- 

 tion in the United States have been announced in Science. 

 In addition to many gifts of 10,000!. or less, the follow- 

 ing benefactions have been made. By the will of the late 

 Mrs. Frederick Sheldon, 60,000/. has come to Harvard 



