88 



NA TURE 



[July 15, 1909 



" inwardness " of migration as was the case a century 

 ago, and that practically all our information on this sub- 

 ject is connected with mass-movements, so that we are 

 ignorant of the wandering's of individual birds. The 

 acquisition of a knowledge of such individual movements 

 will, it is urged, aid, not only in the study of the general 

 migration of species, but will assist in analysing the factors 

 connected with migration as a whole. Active measures 

 are being taken to inaugurate a system of bird-marking 

 in the United States. 



A similar movement has been started in this country 

 by Mr. H. F. Witherby, the editor of British Birds, the 

 details of which will be found in the June issue of that 

 serial. The rings used for marking are extremely light, 

 and do not in any way interfere' with the bird's power of 

 flight: each is stamped "Witherby, High Holborn, 

 London," and bears a distinctive number, which in the 

 smaller sizes is stamped inside the ring, and it is hoped 

 that anyone into whose hands should fall a bird so marked 

 will send the bird and the ring, or, if this is not possible, 

 (hen the particulars of the number on the ring, the species 

 of bird, and the locality and date of capture, to the address 

 given. 



Yet .-mother centre for bird-marking is to be established 

 at Aberdeen, as announced in the June number of British 

 Birds. 



The history of the rise and progress of ornithologv in 

 South .Africa is presented in concise and popular form by 

 Mr._ A. Haagner in Popular Bulletin No. 2 of the South 

 African Ornithologists' Union, recently published at 

 Pretoria. 



To No. 1670 of the Proceedings of the U.S. National 

 IWuseum Mr. E. A. Mearns contributes a paper on new 

 and rare birds from the Philippines, while in No. 1683 

 of this serial the same author gives a list of birds recently 

 collected in the Philippines, Borneo, and certain other 

 Malav islands. 



UNIVERSITY AND KDTJrATIONAL 

 INTELLIGENCE. 

 Dr. E. Kveciit has been appointed nrofessor of techno- 

 logical chemistry in the University of Manchester. 



From the Ohserratary we learn that Mr. J. Lunt. astro- 

 physical assistant at the Cape Observatory, has been fiven 

 the honorary degree of D.Sc. by the University of Man- 

 chester. 



The annual meeting of the Midland Agricultural and 

 Dairy College will be held on Monday, July 26, when the 

 report on the year's work will be presented." The Duke of 

 Rutland will address the meeting, and present the diplomas 

 and certificates gained during last session. 



MERELYtomention the titles of four of the six articles con- 

 tained in the February-March issue of the Southern Educa- 

 tional Revie-Lv is to demonstrate the importance its editor 

 attaches to the education of the negro. These articles are 

 those on " Results of Attemnts at. the Higher Education 

 of the Nesro of the South," " The Essential Requirements 

 of Negro Education," " Negro Rural Schools," and " Rela- 

 tion of the State to the Education of the Negro." The 

 review is published at Chattanooga, Tenn., U s"^^ by the 

 editor, Mr. H. Elmer Bierly. ' ' ' 



It is proposed to establish in connection with the Paris 

 University a system of exchan.ge between French and 

 foreign _ professors on similar lines to that which has for 

 some _ time been in vogue between Berlin and America. 

 M. Liard, rector of the university, has made an appeal to 

 the friends of the university to create a fund for the pur- 

 pose. M. Albert Kahn has placed at the disposal of the 

 rector an annual grant of 30,000 francs for five years. 

 Ihe Rtvue scientifique states that two million francs are 

 necessary for the success of the scheme. 



It is announced by the New York correspondent of the 



limes _ that Mr. John D. Rockefeller has celebrated his 



seventieth birthday by giving 2.000,000/. to the General 



Education Board, which he founded in 1907 for the pur- 



NO. 2072, VOL. 81] 



pose of endowing American colleges and universities. The 

 Board had already received 8, boo, 000/. from him. Some 

 forty institutions of higher education have benefited by this 

 trust, including Harvard and Yale Universities. The cor- 

 respondent states that the Board's policy is governed by 

 the belief that every city of more than 100,000 inhabitants 

 should possess a college. The annual income of the Board 

 is said to be 20o,oooZ. 



The accounts of the London Polytechnics for the year 

 ended July 31, igo8, have been printed by the London 

 County Council. The council's comptroller points out that 

 the total ordinary receipts of these eleven institutions 

 amounted to 212,495/., 3" increase of 8,543/. over the 

 previous year. The council's grants amounted to 80,503/., 

 or 37-88 per cent, of the total receipts. Grants from the 

 Board of Education amounted to 38,229/., or 17-99 P^f 

 cent. ; the sums received from the City Parochial Founda- 

 tion were 27,704/., or 13-04 per cent., and from City com- 

 panies, &c., 6,929/., or 3'26 per cent. The total ordinary 

 expenditure on revenue account of all the polytechnics 

 amounted to 211,050/., an increase of 4,431/: over the 

 previous year. Taking the results as a whole, so far as 

 ordinary income and expenditure are concerned, there was 

 a surplus of 545/. on the institutions, as compared with a 

 deficit of 3,567/. in 1906-7. The amount expended on 

 teachers' salaries reached 99,286/., or 47-84 of the total 

 expenditure; other salaries accounted for 25,500/., or 12-30 

 per cent.; rent, rates, and taxes absorbed 11,586/., or 5-58 

 per cent. ; and apparatus and other educational appliances 

 and furniture cost 18,327/., or 8. .S3 per cent, of the total 

 expenditure. 



Teachers at agricultural schools and colleges in this 

 country will be interested in the full and detailed syllabus 

 issued by the Colorado State Agricultural College. The 

 requirements for admission strike an English teacher as 

 severe, and we can only congratulate the Colorado College 

 if it is in a position to insist on the high standard they 

 imply. The student is expected to have a certain acquaint- 

 ance with English literature, gained by reading specified 

 classics, and to be " familiar with the essential principles 

 of rhetoric," including the following: — "choice of words, 

 structure of sentences and paragraphs, the principles of 

 narration, description, exposition,, and argument." History 

 is another essential subject, and the teacher who is pre- 

 paring pupils for the college is informed that " the mere 

 learning of a text will not give the preparation that the 

 colleges desire. Effort should be made to cultivate the 

 power of handling facts and of drawing proper deductions 

 from data, to develop the faculty of discrimination, to 

 teach the pupils the use of books, and how to extract sub- 

 stance from the printed page." The other subjects — 

 mathematics, chemistry, physics, " other languages " — are 

 to be taught in a similar spirit. Students so trained 

 would form admirable raw material, and could have no 

 great difficulty in taking the fullest advantage of the 

 college course. 



The Board of Education has issued [Cd. 4736] its regu- 

 lations for technical schools, schools of art, and other 

 forms of provision of further education in England and 

 Wales which will come into force on August i next. No 

 changes of special importance have been made as com- 

 pared with those of last year. It is satisfactory to note 

 that the amount of each of the royal exhibitions, &c., 

 tenable at the Royal College of Art and the Imperial 

 College of Science and Technology, South Kensington, has 

 been raised from 50/. to 60/. per session. The old roy.al 

 exhibitions and national scholarships tenable at the Impe- 

 rial College of Science and Technology, have been com- 

 bined as royal scholarships, the competition for which is 

 to be conducted on the lines hitherto adopted for the award 

 of national scholarships. In place of the former student- 

 ships-in-training in science, the Board of Education has 

 established special studentships for teachers of science and 

 technology who are qualified to enter on the third or fourth 

 year of the course provided at the Imperial College. We 

 notice that in future such teachers-in-training are not to be 

 permitted to continue for more than two years in all at 

 the Imperial College, a change which, in view of the need 

 for highly qualified teachers in our provincial schools of 

 science and technology, seems of doubtful wisdom. 



