614 EEPORT— 1900. 



teen this year notably augmented by tlie very successful international congresses 

 of mathematicians and of physicists which met a few weeks ago in Paris. The three 

 volumes of reports on the progress of physical science during the last ten years, for 

 which we are indebted to the initiative of the French Physical Society, will pro- 

 vide an admirable conspectus of the present trend of activity, and forma permanent 

 record for the history of our subject. 



Another very powerful auxiliary to progress is now being rapidly provided by the 

 republication, in suitable form and within reasonable time, of the collected works 

 of the masters of our science. AVe have quite recently received, in a large quarto 

 volume, the mass of most important unpublished work that was left behind him by 

 the lato Professor J. C. Adams ; the zealous care of Professor Sampson has worked 

 up into order the more purely astronomical part of the volume ; while the great 

 undertaking, spread over many years, of the complete determination of the secular 

 change of the magnetic condition of the earth, for which the practical preparations 

 had been set on foot by Gauss himself, has been prepared for the press by Professor 

 Vv^ G. Adams. By the publication of the first volume of Lord Rayleigh's papers 

 a series of memoirs which have formed a main stimulus to the progress of 

 mathematical physics in this country during the past twenty years has become 

 generally accessible. The completed series will form a landmark for the end of the 

 century that may be compared with Young's ' Lectures on Natural Philosophy ' 

 for its beginning. 



The recent reconstruction of the University of London, and the foundation 

 of the University of Birmingham, will, it is to be hoped, give greater free- 

 dom to the work of our University Colleges. The system of examinations 

 has formed an admirable stimulus to the eflective acquisition of that general 

 knowledge which is a necessary part of all education. So long as the examiner 

 recognises that his function is a responsible and influential one, which is to 

 be taken seriously from the point of view of moulding the teaching in places 

 where external guidance is helpful, test by examination will remain a most valu- 

 able means of extending the area of higher education. Except for workers in 

 rapidly progressive branches of technical science, a broad education seems better 

 adapted to the purposes of lite than special training over a narrow range ; and it is 

 difficult to see how a reasonably elastic examination test can be considered as a 

 hardship. But the case is changed when preparation for a specialised scientific 

 profession, or mastery of the lines of attack in an unsolved problem, is the object. 

 The general education has then been presumably finished ; in expanding depart- 

 ments of knowledge, variety rather than uniformity of training should be the aim, 

 and the genius of a great teacher should be allowed free play without external 

 trammels. It would appear that in this country we have recently been liable to 

 unduly mix up two methods. We have been starting students on the special and 

 lengthy, though very instructive, processes which are known as original research at 

 an age when their time would be more profitably employed in rapidly acquiring a 

 broad basis of knowledge. As a result, we have been extending the examination 

 test from the general knowledge to which it is admirably suited into the specialised 

 activity which is best left to the stimulus of personal interest. Informal contact 

 with competent advisers, themselves imbued with the scientific spirit, who can 

 point the way towards direct appreciation of the works of the masters of the science, 

 is far more effective than detailed instruction at second hand, as regards growing 

 subjects that have not yet taken on an authoritative form of exposition. Fortu- 

 nately there seems to be now no lack of such teachers to meet the requirements of 

 the technical colleges that are being established throughout the country. 



The famous treatise which opened the modern era by treating magnetism and 

 electricity on a scientific basis appeared just 300 years ago. The author, 

 William' Gilbert, M.D., of Colchester, passed from the Grammar School of his 

 native town to St. John's College, Cambridge : soon after taking his first degree, 

 in 1560, he became a Fellow of the College, and seems to have remained in resi- 

 dence, and taken part in its affairs, for about ten years. AH through his subse- 

 quent career, both at Colchester and afterwards at London, where he attained 

 the highest position in his profession, he was an exact and diligent explorer, 



